Sebastian Vettel will start from pole for the second successive race as he led a Red Bull one-two ahead of local favourite Mark Webber in qualifying for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.

The German, who finished runner up in last year's Formula One championship, had first place wrapped up by midway through Q3 when he clocked a time of one minute 23.919 seconds at the Albert Park circuit.

Webber, desperate to claim a maiden victory at his home grand prix, was just 0.116secs behind as he finished second.

Bahrain GP winner Fernando Alonso will line up third on the grid in his Ferrari while reigning world champion and Jenson Button starts from fourth in his second race for McLaren.

But of surprise was former world champion Lewis Hamilton's failure to progress from Q2 and the McLaren driver will start from 11th on the grid.

"It is a great result for both of us and for the team," said Vettel. "It is a long race but looking at qualifying, I think we did well coming in with the car and improvements we made. The result says it all and I am looking forward to Sunday."

Ferrari's Felipe Massa, who finished second two weeks ago, lines up fifth while Nico Rosberg got the better of Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher to secure sixth with the seven-time world champion starting from seventh.

Rubens Barrichello once again made it through to Q3 in his Grove-built Williams and takes eighth on the grid with Enstone-based Renault F1's Robert Kubica and Adrian Sutil of Silverstone-based Force India starting ninth and tenth respectively.

Things looked promising for Hamilton when he set the fastest lap in free practice on Friday but then found himself in trouble with police after performing stunts in his Mercedes road car outside the circuit.

With heavy traffic in the middle of the pack certain to be a factor Sunday, Hamilton will undoubtedly face a struggle to climb through the field but he stressed Friday night's incident did not affect his performance.

"It was something you learn from," he told BBC1. "I don't think it particularly affected qualifying."