Webber says failure cost him podium

Webber briefly took the lead in his Williams when Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen both stopped to re-fuel, but his hopes of a hometown finish were dashed when a gearbox problem forced him to retire.

"It's a real shame because we had a great strategy and I was very, very heavy," said Webber.

"I had plenty more laps to go and although it might have been tough to keep Kimi and Fernando away from my P1 position, I think we had lots of other people including Jenson and Ralf covered and a podium would have been reasonably straight forward.

"But saying all of that, you need to get to the chequered flag. The outcome is really disappointing for me, the team, everyone, but we're all in the boat together - the team and Bridgestone has done a really good job on the car, we have the pace, but now we've got to work on our reliability."

Williams endured a disappointing race again, with both their cars retiring from the event for the second consecutive Grand Prix.

Webber's teammate Nico Rosberg's race lasted only one lap, before Felipe Massa crashed into his Williams and forced him to retire.

"The start of my race into the first corner all went fine but then Massa and Klien got in bit of a tangle and I could see Massa coming sideways in my mirrors on the inside of me," Rosberg explained. "I thought to myself don't, please don't, because I had nowhere to go.

"In the end he just hit me from behind and that was it. My rear wing was off and my radiators were too damaged for me to continue.

"It's unfortunate because I was in a good position with a lot of fuel and considering that so many people had gone off or dropped to the back of the field, I was starting to think that today it could have gone my way and I could have scored some good points."