Monday, May 20th, 2003  
 

Jaguar Racing has put a question-mark over the stewards' decision to penalise Mark Webber in Austria.

For tactical reasons, the Australian started the race from pitlane to give him a full quota of fuel.

But the FIA's new rules forbid teams from re-fuelling before the race has officially started; but Webber's stop-go was officially incurred because the race was re-started on the third attempt.

'This made the first start officially null and void,' said Head of vehicle performance Mark Gillan.

'So our fuel top-up was declared illegal and we were given the ten-second stop.'

He says the stewards' decision was 'strange' given that Jaguar didn't actually gain a competitive advantage of any sort from doing what they did.

However, he conceded that he 'knew what the rules were but we simply didn't expect the race to suffer two aborted starts!'

Webber fought through the disadvantage to earn points at race's end, and actually posted the third fastest race lap - behind the Ferraris - in the process.

'His pace was simply fantastic,' Gillan enthused.