Herbert's Melbourne hell continues

His car cruised to a halt after problems developed with his clutch after just two corners.

"This has been the worst three days I have ever had," he said.

"It's very frustrating because when the car is running we have shown we can be very competitive.

"We came here with engine issues and we thought we had fixed them but we obviously haven't.

"I have got through quite a few engines - not blown up but with problems we know about.

"I had a great start but the clutch started to slip on turn two and it just got worse and worse as it heated up. That was the end of the race for me."

The Jaguar driver had a series of problems during the weekend which left him 20th on the start grid.

He completed just five laps in the pre-race warm-up to end up last in that session too.

Then things got even worse in the race.

Herbert had hoped to start the season with a strong performance because misfortune blighted most of last year after a poor start and he did not get the monkey off his back until winning the European Grand Prix three races from the end of the season.