Mark Webber believes that the notoriously fickle Melbourne weather may be the greatest hope of preventing a snooze-fest at this year's Australian Grand Prix.
Webber criticised the season opener at Bahrain last week as 'boring' after the new regulations which have removed fuel stops saw few overtaking moves and Ferrari dominate with a 1-2 finish.
The only change of note was when spark plug trouble saw pole-sitter and Webber's team-mate Sebastian Vettel surrender the lead midway through the race, allowing Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa through.
Webber admitted that the best chance of having an interesting race in Melbourne next week was if there was rain.
"Bahrain is normally a very good track for racing and didn't turn out as good as we would have liked, but hopefully there's a nice surprise in Melbourne. We know the weather here can be very changeable, so lots of things can change very quickly," Webber told reporters on his arrival in Melbourne.
Webber is very wary of Ferrari's dominant start to the season, but was happy with what Red Bull achieved with Vettel finishing third and Webber finishing eighth.
"The bar was lifted very high last year and we know this year is another great opportunity for us," he said.
"Ferrari just bashed out a one-two in Bahrain, which is very impressive from them, but no-one is in a position to talk about championships, it's such early days. We'll find out in August who'll be doing what later in the championship."
The Australian, who won races in Germany and Brazil last season, said the new regulations put more pressure on the pit crew to make sure they got the car set-up exactly right.
"We learnt a lot last weekend with totally new regulations again. The team is performing very well; it's exciting. It makes it crucial for engineers and mechanics to get that first stop right and where we place that stop, but after that it's the quickest way for us to do the races," he said.
"The fuelling thing is not such a big deal … the cars are so quick and that's what we like [and] the spectators love, but trying to get the balance of good racing is always difficult."