Toro Rosso's rookie driver Sebastien Buemi did a solid job in Melbourne today for Italy's 'other' grand prix team during his first ever F1 qualifying session, the Swiss youngster posting the 16th fastest time in Melbourne in the Ferrari V8-powered single seater with a best lap of 1:26.503.

Team mate Sebastien Bourdais, who is starting out on his second F1 season with the experienced Faenza-based outfit was in a disappointing 20th position after the final qualifying session with a best lap of 1:26.964 after the Frenchman reported that his Bridgestone tyres didn't get up to temperature during the qualifying runs.

“I have to say I found the pace at which qualifying happens rather quick! You go out, you come back, you change tyres, you go out again. You need to stay relaxed. I think we did quite a good job with what we had and missed out on Q2 by half a tenth. I am quite happy, as these days have been something of a test session for us and we improved the car quite a lot from yesterday morning through to now. I have taken confidence from what I have done so far and feel I am going to be capable of doing this job, even if I am quite young. The visibility in the sunshine was a bit better than yesterday, but we have to get used to it.”

“It was closer than expected to getting to Q2 from a team point of view as Seb just missed out on 15th place to the McLaren by a fraction. My car wasn’t too bad: on my second run I made a slight mistake and on my third, unfortunately my out lap was too slow and I did not get the tyres up to temperature. But it’s encouraging, as the Red Bull car is going well and we are not as far off the pace as I had expected. We have made good progress in terms of understanding the car. Starting last, it will be a tough race, but I will attack as much as I can and hope the race is as eventful as last year.”