Mark Webber arrived at the Belgian Grand Prix knowing he would suffer a five-place grid penalty following an unforeseen gearbox change after the Hungarian GP five weeks ago and his luck did not improve come the race on Sunday.
“But I think this race was a missed opportunity because third place was possible if we’d done everything right.
“There were two problems: the car was strong in the wrong parts of the track and we opted for the wrong strategy.
“We’ll look through the data and try to improve our straight-line speed before Monza (this weekend).”
As so often happens at the start at Spa-Francorchamps, there was an accident at Turn 1. It took out four fast cars – Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean – and the Aston Clinton star was up to eighth by the end of lap one, when the Safety Car came out.
“The start was pretty wild,” says Mark.
“There was plenty of carbon fibre flying around and you had to be careful not to pick up a puncture.
“I made it through unscathed, but I had a grandstand seat of the accident and it’s never nice to see cars being launched into the air.”