Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber has vowed to "fight like hell" in Sunday's European Grand Prix after struggling for pace in qualifying.

The Australian will line up ninth on the starting grid after failing to dial his car in to the tricky 25-turn Valencia street circuit.

Webber's disappointment will be all the more keenly felt with team-mate Sebastian Vettel taking fourth on the grid, while title rival Jenson Button, who Webber trails by 18.5 points in the drivers' standings — will line up fifth.

"We expected to have a tough qualifying session today and it turned out to be the case," Webber admitted on Saturday.

"We thought we would be top six or top eight, so it's not been the best day for us. It's one of our worst qualifying sessions in a long time, but let's see how we go on from here.

"We'll fight like hell as normal, Red Bull knows how to do that.

"It was always going to be damage limitation."

Webber nevertheless believes that even given a perfect lap he could only have fared marginally better given his fuel load for the race.

"I would like to be, given the fuel load I have, only one row further up — there's a tenth of a second there," he said.

"I elected to put a bit of fuel in"

"We knew it was going to be tough to be really competitive in Q3 so I elected to put a bit of fuel in and we'll see what we can get for the back end of the race.

"It's not Spa, it's not Silverstone and it's not Barcelona — it's a different type of track, it's proving to be a difficult one for us.

"We have long straights but there's no fast corners."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner conceded it was frustrating for Webber to be starting so far back but shared the 32-year-old's optimism for the race.

He said: "One tenth of a second for Mark would have made a big difference to his grid position — it would have been the difference between sixth and ninth — but with a bit more fuel in hopefully he can have a good run from there."

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