Mark Webber took the chequered flag in 16th position in the Hungarian Grand Prix, despite encountering a number of problems during the 77-lap race, which was run in temperatures pushing the 30.C mark.

Webber’s dramas began even before the start of the race when his drinks bottle failed on the grid leaving him to complete his first stint without being able to take any fluid on board. The 25-year old Aussie made a storming start from 19th on the grid and managed to out-race the BAR of Olivier Panis into the first corner, and was quickly in the midst of his now customary dice with the Toyotas!

By lap 11, Webber was sitting on the back of a train headed by Mika Salo from Pedro de la Rosa and McNish, while Panis was breathing down the back of Webber’s KL Minardi Asiatech. From 14th and 15th positions, Webber and McNish pitted together on lap 27 but unfortunately Webber overshot his box and that, combined with the extra time required to fit a conventional water bottle, delayed the stop long enough to allow McNish to establish a clear advantage.

The problem with the drink bottle persisted even into the second stint when the top on the replacement bottle came off and emptied its contents into the cockpit! Webber continued but was 24 seconds adrift of McNish and after pitting again on lap 51, was left to run a lonely race to a 16th place finish.

"An interesting afternoon!" summarised Webber afterwards.

"There was certainly a lot of effort put in but for only little reward at the end. We had a few errors crop up - the first being that we couldn’t get the drink bottle to work at the start. The boys said they could probably fix it in the pit stop but I came in right on the rear wing of Allan McNish as we had been fighting for position and I was hoping to jump him during the stop. Unfortunately, I braked a sniff too late and overshot by a long way. Once you lock up initially, it’s very difficult to recover the stop. We lost about six or seven seconds to Allan in that stop and that was a real shame.

"The second stint wasn’t too bad although the lid of the replacement drink bottle came off and spilt everything after the first lap or so. We tried to do something about it again in the second stop but as it was going to delay the stop too much, I told the guys to leave it."

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