Nico Rosberg admitted that he thought his Singapore Grand Prix was ruined when he was forced to stop in a closed pit lane during the first safety car period.
But a fortunate set of circumstances allowed Rosberg to shrug off the penalty and come through to a career-best second place.
"When I saw the safety car coming out just on the lap when I had to pit - the crew had already told me to come in that lap - it was like 'this is not possible, every single time it's exactly the same thing,'" said the German, who had previously been penalised for a similar illegal pit stop in Canada last year.
"I was really annoyed, I thought that was the end of it, until I realised that I was able to pull enough gap afterwards to even be in a good position after my stop and go."
Rosberg was fortunate in that he pitted while the field was still getting into line behind the safety car, so rejoined ahead of all the cars that would stay out during the safety car period.
That meant that when everyone else pitted legally a few laps later, he was in the race lead - ahead of the heavy and slow cars of Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella.
The Williams driver was also helped by the stewards, who did not confirm his penalty for a further five laps after the restart, and Rosberg then waited the maximum permitted three laps before taking the punishment - by which time he was nearly 15s clear of Trulli and 25 ahead of Fisichella, allowing him to rejoin behind eventual winner Fernando Alonso in fourth place.
When Fisichella and Trulli pitted, that allowed Rosberg to finish the race in a superb second.
He had earlier feared his race would be spoilt by being trapped behind Trulli after the Toyota passed him at the start.
"I had a bit of a difficult start on the dirty side, I didn't get away too well, and then dropped behind Jarno and he was pretty slow - I suppose he was heavy on fuel - so I had to get by him," said Rosberg.
"The problem was that my only chance was turn one, where I wasn't ever quite close enough, and turn seven and on the inside it's so bumpy it's nearly impossible to out-brake someone, it's very, very difficult.
"So it took some time until I was just on the inside and could brake alongside him, and even then it was a hairy moment because I locked up everything.
"But I came through, and then I was doing one qualifying lap after another because it was my only chance to break clear of that group, and it worked out well."
Rosberg had been competitive throughout practice and qualifying, as Williams delivered its most competitive performance in many months.
"It felt pretty good, we were definitely quite strong on this track, which is really pleasing," said Rosberg.
"We had a good chance here this weekend, and everything went our way for once, which is fantastic for me and the whole team."
Meanwhile the sister Williams of Kazuki Nakajima added to a much needed strong points haul for the Grove squad with eighth place.
The Japanese rookie was pleased to back up Rosberg's podium finish with his own first haul of points since Silverstone in July.
"It was a great day for the team, returning to form and of course congratulations to Nico," he said.
"As far as my race was concerned, the safety car timing was a little bit unfortunate, but I just had to push my race pace on regardless of what happened and overtake a few cars, and in the end, it was great to claim a point for the first time in a while.
"Hopefully today showed potential which we can try to maintain for the rest of the season."