Ricciardo rues losing chance to sail into top 10 Daniel Ricciardo spent much of Friday evening at Albert Park hoping for some rain for Saturday, but even the Toro Rosso driver wouldn't have wished for the deluge that made it difficult to differentiate the Australian Grand Prix circuit from Albert Park Lake for Saturday's aborted qualifying session at the opening race of the formula one season. Ricciardo, who was a long way off the pace of the front-runners in Friday practice before finishing an encouraging sixth in final practice on Saturday morning before the weather set in, finished 14th in Saturday's truncated qualifying, and was left to rue the postponement of a session where he felt a top-10 qualifying position was within reach on the rain-lashed circuit. Illustration: Craig Golding It was definitely on the edge out there, but as drivers we want to drive, so that's frustrating. It was hard because some corners had puddles, which were interesting by themselves but in other places the road lines are extremely slippery. At Turn 12, there's quite a few road lines there, and that's where it's the most difficult. I had a couple of moments, but managed to get away with them. On my best lap out of Turn 2, I had to give it a very big lift on throttle. Ricciardo was impressive when the weather was at its worst on Saturday, sitting in third on the timesheets late in the session before being the last driver to pit for intermediate tyres. He never got to complete a lap on the faster-compound Pirellis after Caterham's Charles Pic and Sauber rookie Esteban Gutierrez crashed heavily in the final minute, bringing out yellow flags and effectively ending the session as he tumbled down the order with a time of one minute 46.450 seconds. "There was a massive traffic jam and I couldn't really get a clean lap, so I stayed out and finally got a lap on the extremes before coming in for the intermediates," he said. The team left me out to let me bank a lap on the extremes, which was fortunate in a way as I didn't get a timed lap in on the intermediates. The one lap on track with them that I didn't get to finish was very hairy. The West Australian and new race engineer Marco Matassa stayed at the Albert Park circuit for several hours late on Friday night, poring over data in an attempt to extract more pace out of the team's new STR8 chassis in the dry. While the sodden fans at Albert Park on Saturday might not agree, he's one driver who would not mind a return of some rain on race day. "For whatever reason, we seem to go pretty well in the wet," he said. I had a few laps [testing] at Barcelona in the wet and it seemed to be very much like last year's car in that respect, as it had a pretty good front end and its usual traits in the wet. I think if it rains we'll close the gap. Ricciardo's compatriot Mark Webber (1:44.472) finished fifth on the timesheets in yesterday's aborted session after the Red Bull driver survived a wild moment in the high-speed chicane at Turns 11 and 12. With qualifying delayed for 30 minutes from its scheduled 5pm start, Webber resisted the urge to charge out onto the circuit with the rest of the field, and his decision looked to have backfired when he sat in just 16th place after the opening 10 minutes. A lap on the wet-weather tyre elevated him to sixth soon after, and he was demoted to 12th with three minutes remaining as his rivals pitted for the faster intermediate rubber. A late dash after changing tyres bumped him to fifth as the session came to a soggy close. Webber, who was second on the grid to teammate Sebastian Vettel in the 2010 Australian Grand Prix, has finished ahead of his starting position just twice in 11 previous races at Albert Park, the first when he came home fifth on his grand prix debut for Minardi in 2002 and more recently last year, where he finished fourth for his best result at home.