Start costs Jaguar, Webber dear.

Jaguar's Mark Webber endured a horrific Malaysian Grand Prix yesterday [Sunday], after the promise of Saturday qualifying, and grabbing a front-row grid slot all came to nought for the popular Aussie.

Webber's race went wrong from the off, and both he, and team-mate Christian Klien were woefully slow off the grid, losing many places as a result, both engulfed by the pack, none more so than Mark, who had started in second place.

From there though things only got worse for the #1 Jaguar driver, and while fighting his way back up the field, he suffered a collision with the BMW Williams of Ralf Schumacher and immediately had a puncture in the right rear tyre.

After pitting for a successful tyre change and refuel, he was then landed with a drive through penalty 'to rub further salt into the wound'.

Things didn't improve then either and unfortunately on lap 25, Mark spun off into retirement, ending what should have been a top race, with good points a definite possibility, prior to 'that start'.

"I am really disappointed with the outcome of today after all of our hard work and our fantastic place on the front row of the grid for the race," said Webber, "I had a bad start with the car and things did not get much better after that.

"After overtaking Ralf Schumacher twice he hit me from behind and my rear right tyre had a puncture and the car may have suffered some damage too. I then had to limp to the pits to be re-fuelled and have the tyres changed.

"The drive through penalty added to my troubles and after then going off-line several times to let people overtake me I spun under braking. A very difficult end for us which, should not have been the case. The pace of the R5 is evident and we had a great package and set-up for today."

Jaguar's head of vehicle performance, Dr Mark Gillan was also bitterly disappointed, pledging that the team will investigate the cause of their slow starts - something that destroyed the teams chances of scoring points.

"This has been a very unsatisfactory finish to the weekend for all of us," he concluded, "Both R5s were slow pulling away at the start and after many good practice starts this weekend we will be investigating this thoroughly on our return to the factory.

"Mark did a good job to then make up some places and overtake Ralf Schumacher twice. It then appears that he was hit by Ralf from behind causing him to suffer a right rear puncture and damage to the car. The mechanics did a good job to turn him around with new tyres and fuel and get him back out as soon as they did. The drive through penalty is frustrating for us and of course to not have Mark finish is not what we had hoped for."

As for the second R5, driven by rookie Klien, he had what the team described as a 'steady race' in their post-event report, coming home tenth.

"Christian did a good job with the R5 today and to have him finish is encouraging," added Gillan. "The car has been reliable and Cosworth Racing, Pi Research and Michelin have done an outstanding job this weekend as they always do. We at Jaguar Racing have a lot of hard work ahead of us between now and Bahrain as we know that we have a competitive package and getting both drivers to the finishing line and scoring points is what we are capable of."