Vettel &mdash; bidding for a fourth consecutive world drivers&rsquo; crown &mdash; posted the fastest times in both practice sessions, settling with a best lap of one minute 25.908 seconds in the afternoon to stake his claim for Sunday&rsquo;s Melbourne race. <img alt="" src="http://images.mid-day.com/2013/mar/Sebastian-Vettel.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 496px;" /> Sebastian Vettel (left) shares a light moment with his Red Bull teammate during the first practice session in Melbourne yesterday. Pic/AFP. Australian Mark Webber (1:26.172) completed an emphatic one-two for the champion Red Bull team as main title rivals Ferrari and McLaren trailed in their wake. &ldquo;Overall it was a good day for us. It was pretty seamless and there was no trouble with the car,&rdquo; Vettel said.u00a0&ldquo;After all the mileage of testing, it was fun to be out there. This circuit doesn&rsquo;t get easier, it&rsquo;s a good challenge.u00a0&ldquo;Today was a good day and the balance was good, but we need to be ready for what&#39;s coming up.&rdquo; Ferrari&rsquo;s Fernando Alonso, edged out by Vettel in last year&rsquo;s championship, finished 0.840 secs behind Vettel&rsquo;s fastest lap, while last season&rsquo;s Melbourne winner Jenson Button was well down in 11th place in his McLaren. &ldquo;Qualifying won&rsquo;t be easy, but I&rsquo;m pretty sure we&rsquo;ll be able to do a better job on Saturday than we&rsquo;ve done today,&rdquo; Button said. Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said McLaren were &ldquo;struggling to understand&rdquo; their new car and were lacking grip.u00a0&ldquo;We were lacking overall grip, consistency, bit of understeer, poor ride so it was a very difficult day and we didn&rsquo;t go forward either, that&rsquo;s a bit of concern,&rdquo; Whitmarsh said. &ldquo;There will be a lot of data to be working hard and long on tonight and clearly it should be a base we can improve upon and we can do so tomorrow... it was a disappointing and tough day for the team.&rdquo;u00a0Alonso said he was not surprised by the quicker times recorded by the Red Bull cars.u00a0&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not expecting any major surprises here, we already knew we were not the quickest and that was confirmed today,&rdquo; he said.

World champion Sebastian Vettel took up where he left off last season as Red Bull dominated practice yesterday ahead of the weekend's season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix.

Vettel, Red Bull dominate practice session

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Vettel, Red Bull dominate practice session

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