Mark Webber has welcomed the return to form of McLaren and Ferrari, believing it could play into his hands as he chases the title.

The past two world champions in Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen finished first and second in yesterday's Hungarian Grand Prix, leaving Webber to settle for third.

But the Australian always suspected the Hungaroring would not be the ideal circuit for his Red Bull, even though he and team-mate Sebastian Vettel qualified third and second respectively.

With struggling Jenson Button only seventh in his Brawn GP, Webber chipped another four points out of the Briton's championship lead, cutting the gap to 18.5 points to move up to second.

Believing his car clearly has the edge on the Brawn, and knowing it will be capable of a much closer fight with McLaren and Ferrari at circuits to come, Webber is optimistic of his title chances.

"If we win and make it very, very boring, it's great for us, but in the end, to be honest, I think it was a good day for the sport," assessed Webber on yesterday's result.

"Lewis is back, Ferrari are back - we knew they would - and that's what Red Bull likes. We love racing these guys and fighting hard against them.

"In the end, it was a pretty difficult venue for us. We knew we didn't have the advantage we had in the last few events.

"But all in all, I am still pretty happy to get the result we did.

"We are still up there. We haven't been blown away by any means. We are in the hunt, and we can take our car to a lot of venues and be competitive."

Hamilton's win was the first by a car using the power boost of the KERS system this season, and with McLaren and Ferrari back on the pace, they could now go on to dominate.

Webber, appreciating KERS will continue to "play a bit of a role in the closing part of the championship," does not believe that to be the case.

"Thankfully we capitalised in the early part of the championship when these guys were struggling in terms of points, which was a big benefit to us," said Webber of Hamilton and Raikkonen.

"Despite KERS, we're going to continue to be in the hunt and still be very much a force.

"Our guys have a lot of positive things to look forward to."

Team-mate Vettel's failure to score for the fourth race this season allowed Webber to leapfrog the young German in the standings.

Yet although Webber has a 4.5-point cushion over Vettel, he knows it is still too early for the team to back one driver over the other.

"I think Sebastian and I can still fight the Brawns," added the 32-year-old.

"We know they've had a bit of a blip in the last three races, which we hope continues and we can continue to take points out of them together.

"Sebastian had a bit of a tough weekend, not scoring points for the first time in a long time.

"But he will be back, and after the break we can recharge and take the fight again."