Webber welcomes 'great' result

The Australian Red Bull driver took full advantage of the conditions to put on a solid, error-free performance, benefiting from his rivals' problems to finish just outside the top three.

It was Webber's fifth consecutive point-scoring finish and the best result of the season for him and his team.

"That was a great result which gives us a lot of points," said Webber. "It wasn't the most exciting race in the world in terms of racing, but it was very difficult early on in the wet conditions and we were aqua-planning at Casino.

"It was definitely over the edge for the intermediate tyres for a few laps when it was raining hard, but then it started to dry and we had to think about changing tyres.

"It would have been good to have had a little bit more fuel as we had to change to dry tyres maybe five laps earlier than we would have liked. It wasn't ideal, but the team did such a good job, both at the track and at the factory in Milton Keynes, it's great to get a strong result."

David Coulthard, on the other hand, was "extremely disappointed" after crashing out of the race on lap 13.

"It's was always going to be a race where you had to be very careful at the beginning," he said. "I was having difficulty with my downshifts and got caught out on the entry to Casino; I corrected, corrected and corrected, but then ran out of road.

"It looked like Sebastien (Bourdais) had a similar event and then found me in an area where he was about to have his crash. I'm extremely disappointed as this is a race where keeping out of trouble gives you a good chance of getting points.

"But, that said, the boys did a great job to recover the car after the qualifying accident and I'm obviously very happy that they scored a fourth place with Mark."