Mark Webber walked away from the Istanbul circuit with nothing to show for his efforts apart from a tenth placed finish, one position lower that his original grid position, after what can only be described as a very disappointing thirtieth birthday.

However, the start of the race saw the Aussie driver move right up the order from ninth into fourth after getting past the McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen and avoiding the spinning Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella, however, after pitting when the safety car was deployed, Mark was unable to get back up into the thick of things as he struggled for pace in his very heavy FW28.

“The start was very close – I went to the outside of Kimi to start with but then because he had a lot happening around him, he moved over so I went back to the inside to get through,” he explained. “After that, everything went fine until the Safety Car period. I got absolutely creamed in the first 10 laps after my first pit stop."

"I don’t know whether it was because I was full of fuel but I had very poor rear grip. I was pretty happy with my first and third stints and maybe if we hadn’t stopped as early as we did, we may have finished with a couple of points in our hands today. It was a close call though as to whether to stop when the Safety Car came out or continue and try and get further down the road.”

Now it’s back to the test track and on to Monza for the final European race of the 2006 season in two weeks time.