Williams remain upbeat despite failures

The Grove-based outfit had gone into the Sepang race looking to score their first win since the end of 2004, but their hopes ended early on when Nico Rosberg was forced out with an engine failure and Mark Webber pulled off with hydraulics failure.

Despite the disappointment, Michael has said he is confident the team will solve the problems before the Australian Grand Prix.

"It was a shame that we had two DNFs with the cars after a promising start," he said. "Both cars got off the line well until the first corner when Alonso went round the outside of both of them.

"Nico's engine failed early in the race, then we had a problem on Mark's car with the hydraulics - he developed a leak that we couldn't fix in the pitstop and the car stopped about a lap and a half later.

"It's a disappointing end to the weekend, but car performance-wise we could have been solidly into the points looking at everyone else's pace and we'll go to Melbourne with fixes to these problems with increased determination."

Cosworth's Bernard Ferguson has said it is too early to know exactly what caused Rosberg's problem, but a full analysis would take place at the company's Northampton base this week.

"With it being the second race for the Cosworth CA2006 V8 engines in both cars, we knew it would be tough, especially in the hot conditions," he explained. "Unfortunately Nico's engine expired on lap 7 due to an as yet undiagnosed problem.

"We need to get the failed engine back to our Northampton headquarters as quickly as possible so we can analyse the failure."