Pain in the neck for JPM

The Williams driver managed to get his car home in eighth spot to grab the last remaining point, but it was tough work as he tried to keep his unbalanced FW26 on the track and keep his competitors behind him.

"It has been a very difficult race for me, especially because of an intense pain in my neck, which nearly prevented me from being able to keep my head up," he explained. "I hurt my neck on Friday, when I crashed, but I didn't expect the pain to become so sharp in the race.

"Also the balance of my car wasn't ideal, especially in the first part of the race, which caused me to make a few mistakes. I really hoped I could get much more than one single point today."

Team-mate Marc Gene was also beset with problems, most notably a clutch problem bogging him down at the start of the race.

"Tenth place is not what I had hoped for," said the Spaniard. "I had a problem with the clutch on the grid but since I didn't want to jump the start I released it very slowly and lost three positions. This is when I lost 50% of my chances to get a good finish.

"Then Mark Webber and I touched on turn 3 and I nearly spun. Two of my sets of tyres were very good and allowed me to catch up with the drivers in front, like Mark Webber or Juan Pablo, but even though I tried my best, those in front were too fast. Both my car and I just needed more speed, today!"