The weekend didn't get off to the best of starts for Webber when he crashed on only his second timed lap in first practice. He admitted he had carried too much speed into turn 18 and instead of going up the escape road, tried to make it round the corner and slammed into the barrier where the circuit goes underneath the grandstand. This meant that Webber was out for the remainder of the session and with only one hour between the end of the first and start of the second session, the team was unable to complete the repairs in time. He finally re-appeared on the track with 27 minutes of the session remaining. He completed one long run before going out in the final few minutes and set the 11thfastest time of 1min 47.137s, just ahead of the other Red Bull cars. Webber made up what time he lost on Friday in Saturday's final session, reeling off 21 laps and ending it eighth fastest with a time of 1min 45.450, just ahead of Toro Rosso duo, Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Bourdais.

For only the fourth time this season, Webber failed to make it into the top 10 qualifying session; traffic on both his out-laps in Q2 hampering his timed lap and so he was to start the 61-lap Grand Prix in 13th position, one place ahead of Coulthard. Said Webber post qualifying, "The team told me to push hard on my first out-lap in Q2 because Heikki (Kovalainen) was coming up on his flying lap and I didn't want to compromise him or allow him to get ahead of me as he would then compromise my flying lap. I was on for a 44.8 (which would have got me into the top 10) but I lost the tyres in the last sector. I had virtually the same thing happen again on my second run, this time with Lewis.

Webber made a good start in the middle of the pack, maintaining 13th position after the initial jostling saw the lightly-fuelled Alonso move ahead while Jenson Button dropped a position. While at the front of the pack, Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton, were already beginning to run away with the race, Jarno Trulli was holding up a train of seven cars, the Toyotadriver heavily fuelled and on a one-stop strategy. It took until lap seven before Nico Rosberg found his way past, closely followed by his Williams team-mate, Kazuki Nakajima and Alonso, leaving Webber as the next one to try his luck.

However, the race was brought under the control of the Safety Car a few laps later when Piquet crashed; a lap after Alonso had made his first scheduled pit-stop. Red Bull Racing strategists were quick to pit their two drivers before the pit-lane closed and this propelled both Webber and Coulthard up the order as, when the race went back to green, the majority of the field pitted.

Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica both had to stop for fuel while the pit lane was closed and were duly issued with a penalty stop. Although it effectively scuppered Kubica's chances of a podium finish, amazingly for Rosberg the penalty hardly affected his race; the German making the most of the clear air ahead of him to punch in some quick laps before having to take his penalty some eight laps after the race had gone back to green.

Amid all this, Webber was nicely positioned in sixth place and poised to move into fourth after Rosberg and Kubica had taken their penalties. Second place was looking a reality because behind race leader Alonso, Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella had yet to make their first stop. However, disaster struck before this scenario could be played out when, on lap 27, Webber appeared to run off the track and slid down to 14thposition. He slowed and made his way back to the pits to retire with a gearbox problem, having lost seventh and then fifth gear.

"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."

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