Coulthard closes on championship lead
David Coulthard closed to within one second place finish of the lead of the world championship as he finished runner-up yet again in the Austrian Grand Prix, behind McLaren-Mercedes team mate Mika Hakkinen
Coulthard netted six points, which put him behind championship leader Michael Schumacher by the same margin. Hakkinen's second win in 10 races puts him just two points behind the Scot in third place.
Coulthard briefly took the lead of his 100th Grand Prix as he awaited his one and only pit stop. After stopping, he took up his second place once more, before trailing home 12 seconds behind Hakkinen to finish on the second step of the A1-Ring podium for the fourth year in a row
"It would have been nice to win my 100th Grand Prix, but Mika was in really good form today," said Coulthard. "Some people wouldn't want second place but I am pleased with it. It's more points. At least we closed the gap on Michael and anything could happen now in the championship."
Coulthard admitted he was happy to take six points rather than risk a mechanical failure whilst pushing to catch the Finn.
"There was no point in risking everything trying to catch him. I was chasing a faster car and if I had pushed harder I could easily have turned an easy six points into nothing if something broke. So far we've had fantastic reliability and I hope it continues for rest of the season."
For full race results click here.
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments