Webber fought trouble for dream result

The 25-year-old took his Minardi to an incredible fifth place in Melbourne. But, as racing director John Walton explained, the points were even harder earned than anyone realised.

"We had a little software problem," Walton said. "We had a little trouble with the auto start and he didn't make an exceptionally good getaway. Call it a software bug, but the simple way around it was to turn off the pit lane speed limiter because we have various systems built around it that were causing the revs to drop.

"When he came in for his refuelling stop we gave Mark the instruction to turn off the pit limiter but unfortunately someone had forgotten to mention that when you do that, the fuel flap shuts...

"Mark had followed the instruction so we had to tell him to turn it back on again, but in the meantime the guy on the fuel hose had managed to prize it open. It was all a bit of a comedy of errors trying to cure one problem and inventing another."

Webber had also experienced an electronic problem which stopped the differential from working from halfway round the first lap. "Basically, he did very well to hang on and put in the performance that he did," Walton explained. "He had understeer where he didn't want it and oversteer where he didn't want it, so he did a fantastic job. It was a great result but we've still got a big mountain to climb."