Williams pair rue missed chance

The duo qualified on row six but finished 14th and 15th, with Hulkenberg having lost his front wing running into Adrian Sutil, and Barrichello suffered damage in an incident with Jaime Alguersuari.

"We were there today with our pace to bank some points, but it became a very busy race," said Barrichello, who also lost ground off the line with anti-stall issue.

"I had a problem on the grid, so I had to make up some places. I passed Alguersuari, but he came across me to cover his line too late as I was already there. He hit me with a big, 2g impact.

"The damage blocked my front left brake duct and when the temperatures climbed, I lost the pedal and had to let cars by until I could pit. Even after the stop, it took three laps for the brake pedal to come back, so the incident really destroyed our race and it is frustrating for the whole team as we certainly had a car capable of a good finish today."

Hulkenberg got into the top ten at the start, but as well as being delayed in the Sutil tangle, he was also penalised for pitlane speeding.

"The first problem occurred when I was fighting with Sutil and I damaged my front wing, which meant that I had to make an unscheduled stop on lap six," he said.

"Then unfortunately on my second stop I broke the speed limit, which meant a drivethrough penalty.

"All of these incidents cost a lot of time and we didn't achieve a points finish which was clearly possible today. In summary, I think we had a much-improved car here and I am sorry that I did not manage to capitalise on all the hard work the team put in this weekend."