• Australian Grand Prix

Webber keeping an eye on Mercedes and Renault

Mark Webber reacts to Lewis Hamilton's jibe: "We are just a drinks company but in the end we had a pretty good season last year" © Getty Images

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• Race:
• Australian Grand Prix

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Drivers:
• Mark Webber

• Teams:
• Red Bull

Mark Webber is not underestimating his rivals ahead of the first grand prix of the season this weekend and has earmarked Mercedes and Renault as this year's surprise packages.

Red Bull is both the favourite for the title and victory in Australia on Sunday, but the order behind the 2010 champions is less clear. Ferrari is expected to be its main competitor but Mercedes and Renault have shown pace in pre-season testing and Webber is not ruling them or McLaren out.

"I think the Renault and Mercedes are fast, yeah, they're not hanging around," he said. "They've done a good job in the winter. Renault have always been there or thereabouts. They've got a very experienced team there at Enstone so it will be very interesting. Whether they can put a championship together obviously remains to be seen.

"Also Mercedes have had a good finish to winter testing and they're going to be winning some races for sure this year. They've showed good reliability so there's no reason why they couldn't challenge for the title along with McLaren and Ferrari."

He also seized the opportunity to respond to Lewis Hamilton's recent comments that Red Bull does not have the history and heritage of its closest rivals.

"We are just a drinks company but in the end we had a pretty good season last year so hopefully we can build on what we did last year," he added. "We have some sensational rivals. The red guys are a phenomenal team, phenomenal history and that's what gives us great rewards to come out and compete against those guys.

"The team again has a high bar set in terms of looking for championships. Both of them would be nice but again as we saw last year if we go to the end it can go either way. That is the goal for the team."

He said Red Bull's biggest unknown was the degradation rate of the Pirelli tyres and what that would mean for race strategy.

"Well there are a lot of questions for us to answer this weekend," Webber said. "We have done mileage in the tyres in the winter. They have given us a rough idea of what we should expect, but we need to go racing to see how best to adapt that within a grand prix race. We have got a pretty good idea what the tyres are going to do for us, but how do we integrate that into a grand prix with pit-stops, strategy, things like that?

"There are some things which are not going to be a surprise probably and that is going to be the tyre performance, but it is how we are going to skin the cat in the grand prix in terms of where you elect to pit, how you are going to tackle the grand prix in terms of the strategic side. Those are going to be the things that need answering and then I suppose a trend will start from this race and in subsequent events after this we will get a trend on how grands prix will unfold in a dry situation."

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