Mark Webber’s tale of bad luck continued today when he was forced to retire from the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix with a gearbox problem while strongly placed and in with a serious shout of a podium finish and his best result to date.

“It’s cost us a fantastic result today,” said a bitterly disappointed Webber afterwards. “I had good pace in the second stint and I was actually going six laps longer than Fernando in that stint. It would have been nice to have been up there sharing the podium with him. I’ve never stopped with a gearbox problem with this car and what a time for it to happen.”

Second place appeared to be on the cards for Webber after his Red Bull Racing team made an excellent call and pitted him and his team-mate David Coulthard in the immediate aftermath of Nelson Piquet crashing out. They did so before the pit lane was closed and therefore vaulted up the order into sixth and seventh places respectively. 

The only other driver to pit prior to the Safety Car period was eventual race winner, Fernando Alonso, whose Renault team-mate ironically had caused the interruption to racing and in so doing paved the way for Alonso to record his first race of 2008 at the first-ever night-time F1 Grand Prix.