Webber excited over season opener in Australia

“back to the good old days.' The Red Bull driver beamed once an official statement regarding the Bahrain Grand Prix was released.

With the first race called off, the Formula One season will now start in Mark Webber’s home country of Australia on March 27th.

'It would have been nice to go to Bahrain but we have to wait a bit longer to have our first race and that just happens to be my home race so, as always, looking forward to going down there.” Australian Mark Webber told Autosport Magazine.

'It's a sensational event and we're in good shape as a team so I hope to go there and have a very good result of course,'

Red Bull and Ferrari have looked the class of the field during pre-season testing and would have gone into the Bahrain race as heavy favourites for the race win. Both teams have shown good pace over short and long stints during testing in Barcelona and reliability issues have been less of a concern in comparison to their rivals.

Renault has had issues with their KERS, while McLaren are continuing to play catch up after their 2011 car missed the first test and Mercedes have also been off the pace of the front runners.

While it isn’t looking likely that an extra test session will be run in the period open following the Bahrain postponement, the time for developing their cars could still prove useful and by the time qualifying starts around Melbourne’s Albert Park the gap between the chasing pack and Red Bull and Ferrari could have closed.