Webber: We were on for points

It was the second race in succession that the young Australian had run strongly only to be denied by a technical problem on his R4. In Melbourne, Webber suffered a suspension failure while running in the top six.

"The Michelin tyre worked very well today and we could have got points from this race - even after the delay in the pit lane after my first pitstop," said Webber. "That probably cost me around 30s but once back out, the performance of the car shone through, until lap 35 when we had no choice but to call it a day."

Webber's team-mate Antonio Pizzonia's race was destroyed on the first lap when he was caught up in the repercussions of contact between Michael Schumacher and Jarno Trulli.

"My race effectively ended after the first corner incident," said the Brazilian. "I was hit from behind and pushed into another car that caused the front wing damage. Coming into the pits on lap one cost me too much time to make any real impact on the race."

Pizzonia finally spun out on lap 43 with what seemed to be a brake problem: "The back end of the car snapped and I was a passenger as it spun into the gravel."