Bourdais laments pitstop incident

The Frenchman was one of several drivers who had problems with their refuelling rigs today, his car catching fire during his first stop.

As a result of that, the team had to use their fire extinguishers before Bourdais managed to return to the track.

His visor, however, was too dirty from the firefighting agent and he had to pit again.

Bourdais went on to finish in 18th place.

"There have been two sides to this weekend: it got off to a good start and then I had some problems in qualifying," said Bourdais. "The race also started quite well, as I had a good pace. Then it all went to hell at the first pit stop, as the guys had to use the fire extinguisher and I got a lot of foam on my visor.

"It happened again at the second stop and this time I had foam inside and outside my visor and couldn't see a thing so had to make another stop to get it cleaned.

"By this stage, we had lost so much time, there was nothing else to do and I preferred to make the extra stop as the lack of visibility was dangerous."

Teammate Sebastian Vettel had a day to forget, retiring on lap 23 after a troubled first part of the race.

"I didn't have a very good pitstop and that caused the engine to overheat and that messed up some parts and I had no choice but to retire," Vettel said. "It's a shame as I had a good pace from the car this afternoon.

"I made a mistake in running wide at the last corner on the first lap and lost a lot of places. I was stuck behind Barrichello and it was impossible to overtake. This hasn't been a good weekend and that goes back to Friday when I suffered reliability problems and then came the disappointment this afternoon."