Mark Webber believes that he lost his chance of a first Formula 1 win at the British Grand Prix during qualifying.
Webber finished second behind his Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel, but reckons that he could have posed more of a threat to the German if he had qualified higher up the grid than third.
"Probably yesterday was when we lost the chance," said Webber. "We needed to get on the front row at least, because we knew that Sebastian would be very quick.
The Australian spent his first stint stuck behind Rubens Barrichello's Brawn, dropping almost an entire pit stop behind Vettel. He was able to stay 20 seconds behind Vettel for the remaining 40 laps, but knew the race was beyond him by that point.
"Rubens was doing his best and my car was not that easy, so being 20 seconds behind Seb at the end of the first stint, the race was lost," he added.
"In the second stint then, I had a lot of traffic and in the last stint the guys reported that I had some damage at the back of the car, so from the second stop onwards we switched to a different gear pattern."
Webber's result maintained his fourth place in the world championship, a reduced 33.5 points behind leader Jenson Button, who finished sixth.