Vettel accepts blame for early clash

The German, who had put in his best qualifying effort with the team, ran into the back of Anthony Davidson at the second chicane - which forced him to come into the pits for repairs at the end of the lap.

"My start was okay and then I saw David (Coulthard) coming up my right hand side, which forced me to go round the outside and then in the second chicane, unfortunately I ran into Davidson," said the German who eventually finished 18th.

"It was partly my fault.

"I was happy the Safety Car came out as I didn't lose too much. But later, I had a big problem with the brakes and we will have to find out what caused it.

"I was hardly able to stop the car and at this high speed track you need to have confidence in the brakes. Today was a bit frustrating, after I had a good day yesterday."

Teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi had little more to cheer about after a fairly lonely run to finish one place ahead of him in 17th place.

"The most positive thing from this weekend is that we saw the chequered flag again," said the Italian. "In the race we did not have enough pace to get ahead of the cars in front.

"From my point of view I had a good race, although I had a bit of understeer in the first stint, which cost me a lot of time. My second stint was quite strong. Our pace was not too bad after we improved the car on Saturday morning, but in qualifying we did not get the most out of the car.

"We struggled to stay with other cars when we were in their slipstream as I really lost a lot of downforce when I was near to other cars. All we can do now is to look forward to trying again in Spa."