Webber's Dreams Snuffed Out at the Start

Mark Webber's Malaysian Grand Prix dreams went out with the start lights on Sunday.

The Jaguar driver lined up for the first time on the front row of the grid, alongside Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, but his heroic qualifying performance turned to dust as his car struggled to get off the line.

More than half the field roared past the Australian and Schumacher, heading for another victory, soon lapped him. Webber, pumped up on Saturday, sounded depressed as he relived an experience that the team blamed on computer software.

Austrian teammate Christian Klien suffered an identical problem.

"I'm big enough and ugly enough to know this is how the sport is," said the Australian after his second retirement in two races.

"You're going to have days in motor racing when you are up on a pedestal and you fall down. We've done an absolutely phenomenal job this weekend, we stuffed the most important part up which was getting off the line," said Webber, adding that the anti-stall device had kicked in.

"We've got to work with the team and get to the bottom of that. That was all of our hard work gone," he said. "We've just got to work on the whole philosophy. We've got a lot of work to do."

Webber's attempts to climb back up the field were shattered when he collided with Germany's Ralf Schumacher after twice overtaking the Williams driver.

A puncture, followed by a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pitlane, left him battling against the odds and he was the first retirement after spinning into the gravel 26 laps into the race.

"Ralf hit me at turn one. I don't know what happened there but that gave me a puncture and it was a long way from turn one to the end of the lap so that damaged my diffuser," said the Australian.

"Then I got a penalty in the pits for speeding, which was my fault, and then we think because of issues with the car I blistered the tyres heavily and that forced me to spin."

Even then, he still hoped against hope.

"I was hoping even when I had the puncture. I thought 'stay cool, we can get back in, there might be a big thunderstorm and the safety car, it's still not over'," he said. "But the car was never really the same again.

"We didn't turn up today," he added, disappointedly. "We had a blinding Friday and Saturday but we didn't turn up today."