A visibly deflated Rubens Barrichello was left pondering why things always seem to go ♍wrong on his side of the Brawn GP garage after posting the ex-Honda F1 outfit's first retirement 🃏of the 2009 campaign in the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul at the weekend, on a day when Ross Brawn contended the experienced Brazilian 'would have had a great race'.

After lining up third on the starting grid, Barrich🦋ello encountered a clutch problem when the lights went out - not for the first time this season - that dropped him ten places down the order. Worse still, he subs💫equently lost seventh gear too, which consigned him to having to try and fight his way back through the field again.

There were spirited battles - as well as a spin - along the way with the KERS-equipped McLaren-Mercedes' of Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton, Force India's Adrian Sutil and compatriot Nelsinho Pi𒆙quet in⭕ the Renault...but ultimately little progress.

Still lying outside the top ten, the S?o Paulista pulled into his pit box and retirement with eleven laps remaining - seei෴ng him fall a full 26 points adrift of world champ▨ionship-leading team-mate Jenson Button in the title standings with seven rounds now completed. After the race, the disappointment was acute.

"It appears to have been a gearbox problem," the 36-year-old mused of the issue that had finally ended his challenge. "[It was] the one that I had at the start - the same as in Australia. When I dumped the clutch, the anti-staꦕll kicked in, so it was the wrong calculation for the clutch - once again o﷽n my side.

"With the anti-stall I couldn't get going, and then to complicate things I was on the limiter halfway down the straight,ཧ which didn't make my life any easier because I was competing against cars with KERS. I had to force my way past, and that's just how the race went. It's frustrating, because it's been happening too much on my side."

"Rubens had a problem with the clutch at the start, which over-torqued the gearbox," confirmed the Brackley-based concern's team principal Brawn. "He then had some problems with the gearbox in the race, and it was disappointing that we had our first retirement of t💎he year. He would have had a great r🐎ace, for sure."