Mark Webber second to Nico Rosberg at British Grand Prix Red Bull Racing's Australian driver Mark Webber drives past after colliding at the start of the British Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone. Picture: Tom Gandolfini Source: AFP AUSTRALIAS Mark Webber celebrated a most unlikely second placed finish at the British Grand Prix behind Nico Rosberg last night after experiencing start problems and a replacement of the front wing in a drama-charged, tyre-shredding race. Webber, who has announced his retirement from Formula 1 at the end of the season to join Porsche's sportscar program to race the Le Mans 24 hours race, aggressively attacked Silverstone, one of his favourite circuits and just down the road from his British home. Webber in his Red Bull car had fallen to 14th after colliding with Romain Grosjean at the beginning of the race but staged a remarkable clawback of positions as the two race leaders suffered catastrophic failures. The rear tyre of British hopeful and race leader Lewis Hamilton exploded in one of four significant tyre dramas in the race that has raised serious concerns about the development of the race tyres. Championship leader Sebastian Vettel subsequently suffered a race-ending gearbox failure. Jean-Eric Vergne described his spectacular tyre destruction, which resulted in high-flying, high-speed debris shattering all over the track, as "like a bomb going off." Race mechanics were left scratching their heads as to the cause of the multiple tyre failures and debate continued afterwards whether it was due to tyre construction, low pressure in the tyres or parts of the track causing them damage. At one point hundreds of race marshalls scrambled onto the track while the safety car crawled around the circuit to clear hundreds of bits of debris from the track mid-race. But Webber's problems occurred early on when he went from fourth on the grid to out the back, in a repeat of early season start issues that had been supposedly fixed. "I didn't have a clue what happened off the line," said Webber. The lights went out and it was back to normal (with a slow start), we have to look at what happened. That was frustrating and then we got the race underway from there. Webber said his racing at Silverstone was helped by the tyre drama occurring around him. Obviously there are a lot of issues with the tyres. I would have like a few more laps at Nico (Rosberg), but I happy with second," Webber said. Webber had clocked the fastest lap in the penultimate circuit as he sought to overtake Rosberg, but his hard racing proved to be too late. Hamilton, whose Mercedes team was involved in secret tyre testing with Pirelli last month, said: "It's unacceptable really, we had tyre tests to stop this from happening. Someone could have crashed. Only when someone gets hurt they will do something about it.