Mark Webber slipped to fourth place in the World Drivers’ Championship after a costly misjudgement by his pit crew released the Australian’s no. 14 Red Bull into the path of Nick Heidfeld in the 44-lap Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps .

Although the two avoided contact, his release was deemed “unsafe” by the Stewards who slapped a stop-go penalty on Webber which dropped him from an excellent fifth spot before his pit stop to a lowly 13th.  Although Mark was able to make up a number of places, the damage was done and he finished ninth; just outside the points as he did in Valencia last weekend when a delayed pit-stop cost him a probable two points. Based on his opening stint performance, the team believed he would have finished as high as second although third was probably more realistic.

Webber’s weekend had started on an encouraging note when he topped the times for much of the dry practice session on Friday although running had been limited in the first session due to a heavy rain shower just before the cars took to the track. However, things deteriorated on Saturday when he was unable to compete in Saturday’s final practice session after his car developed an engine problem on his first lap out. He was able to return to the pits slowly but then had to sit out the remainder of the session as a replacement engine was fitted in time for qualifying.

Webber qualified ninth and from there drove a storming opening lap which saw him execute a superb move on his team-mate, Sebastian Vettel, at turn five before going around the outside of Heidfeld at turn 8. With Rubens Barrichello slow off the mark and falling down the order and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli forced to pit after making contact with Heidfeld at the first corner, Webber completed the first lap in fifth place and on a charge to reduce the gap to Timo Glock. Behind, Heidfeld headed Vettel. The race however was brought under the control of the Safety Car when Romain Grosjean, Lewis Hamilton, Jaime Alguersuari and Jenson Button all collided mid-pack, eliminating all four of them on the spot.

The race was run behind the Safety Car until the end of lap four while the debris was removed from the track. Once the action resumed, Robert Kubica was the first to pit from third spot on lap 12, along with Glock from fourth. This promoted Webber into third and setting “purple” middle sector times now he was in free air before pitting himself on lap 14 along with race leader Kimi Raikkonen, pole sitter Giancarlo Fisichella and Heidfeld.

The pit-stop incident was quickly picked up by the Stewards and Webber was issued with the penalty a couple of laps later. When he rejoined, he was in 13thspot and the rest of the afternoon became purely academic.

“I had done all the hard work on the first lap and picked off both Heidfeld and Vettel and was pulling away from them. I laid the foundations for what could have been a great result and a good haul of points. It (the release) was a costly misjudgement and of course it hurts me a lot – it’s something we won’t get back,” Mark said.

“However, the way the championship has been see-sawing around, there’s still not much between us and I’m sure there’ll be more twists and turns before it’s all over.  We need to learn from what happened today and of course we won’t stop pushing hard in the remaining five races – there are a lot of points still up for grabs and we intend to be right up there.”