Nico Rosberg, who dominated for much of free practice in Melbourne, set the fastest lap of the race but could manage no better than seventh after inheriting two points when Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica crashed contesting second place.
Rosberg lost six positions in the last ten laps of the race as he became the first of the front-runners to suffer severe performance drop-off from his soft tyres.
But the German admitted that a mistake at the start and a bungled pit stop had already cost him a significant amount of time.
"It was a challenging race and we suffered with a few glitches here and there, firstly from my side when on lap one I left the door open at turn three and I lost some positions, and then we had a problem on my first pit stop," he said.
"The restart after the first safety car on cold tyres was very difficult, I had no grip at all and again in the last part of the race, I had taken everything out of my tyres and they were dropping out, so it was impossible to keep anyone behind me.
"All said, I think two points is a good outcome because I believe we are faster than a couple of the cars who finished ahead of us today, so from a championship perspective, it looks okay."
Rosberg's team-mate Kazuki Nakajima was taken to the medical centre for precautionary checks after crashing out on lap 17 which he put a wheel over the kerb at Turn 4.
The Japanese was unhurt in accident which prompted the race's first safety car, but was fuming with himself for crashing out.
Williams technical director Sam Michael agreed with his drivers that errors had cost the team dearly: "We made too many mistakes as a team today and we will be looking to make a better job of what the car offers at the next race in Malaysia."
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