Wurz vows to fight back in 2012

The 37-year-old Austrian was livid with himself after the race, having made a mistake in the 18th hour and crashing at Indianapolis which cost he and his team-mates Anthony Davidson and Marc Gene in the #7 908 four laps in repairs, and potentially a place on the podium.

"It was my first mistake since 2008, but it still sucked," he told AUTOSPORT. "But now it's 364 days of work to prepare for next year! There will be no rest."

Wurz and his team-mate Davidson both led the race at various stages, but the former Williams and Benetton Formula 1 driver admitted that all three of the car's pilots had been hampered by set-up gremlins from the get-go which had cost them pace.

"With our #7 car we were always on the back foot because our chassis balance was very oversteery," he explained. "So we could never really attack. That actually was the real problem why we couldn't set the pace like we could previously.

"In Sebring we were the fastest and at Spa we were the fastest. So that was very tough.

"How many times did I race in F1 when the set-up wasn't right? This just happens sometimes," he added. "It made life a bit harder than we wanted it to be, but occasionally we had good stints. Anthony had mega stints in the night. My first stint wasn't too bad and I think I got in the lead.

"Then we lost four and a half minutes with the safety car which was really unlucky for us and then we had another issue which lost us one minute. All those things added up, but it still doesn't excuse my shunt."