Australian GP: Webber hit by telemetry, KERS issues

After qualifying on the front row alongside team-mate Sebastian Vettel, Webber dropped back in the race and could only finish sixth.

"We had a lot of telemetry issues on the grid and absolutely no idea what the car was doing in terms of KERS, in terms of clutch and all sorts of stuff," he said.

"So the guys were quite nervous with that and I was too. We didn't really have much of an idea in terms of getting information back to the pits.

"We lost KERS as well for the majority of the first half of the race.

"We had a very difficult first pitstop. It was slow.

"We ticked a lot of boxes in a negative fashion in the first half of the race. But it can go like that."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner revealed that the issues were caused by the McLaren-supplied standard ECU.

"Mark's problems were hugely frustrating as it was an ECU issue that is supplied by a third party - I will let you guess who that is," he said.

"So we lost all telemetry on the formation lap and then you cannot do the preparation you need to for the start, and then he is in the blind for the start.

"That ECU issue shut the KERS down as well. By the time we had reset the whole system, obviously he had lost the start and lost ground.

"It is something they need to get on top of as there have been a lot of issues in testing.

"It was nothing to do with Mark today."

Red Bull dominated most of the weekend, only for Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus and the Ferraris to prove faster on race day.

Webber acknowledged that it was not just his technical issues that left him off the podium.

"Today, even if we'd got everything right, we were probably going to get outdone by two-stop people," he said.

"The race would've been very, very difficult for us even if we'd had a smooth day.

"Fair play to Kimi and his guys. You've got to take your hat off when someone outperforms you."

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