Horner: Podium a boost for Coulthard

Coulthard has only outqualified teammate Mark Webber this season, and the Australian had scored all of the team's points until the Montreal race.

But Coulthard put on a strong performance on Sunday and returned to the podium for the first time since Monaco in 2006.

Horner says the result was excellent both for the team and for the veteran driver.

"It was a great result for the team and for David after a tough start to the year," said Horner. "I have kept telling him that it will come right, just keep focused.

"He drove the perfect race, used all his experience, pushed at the times he needed to when he had the overlap to Barrichello and the strategy worked out very well for him today and I am delighted for him and the team, so our sixth consecutive points scorer in seven races."

"Anyone who has done over 200 grands prix has been through a few rough patches in their time and he is an extremely professional motivated guy and he has dealt with the difficulties and there was no weekend harder for him than Monaco, with everything that happened there.

"So to bounce back from that and turn up at the next race and score a podium is just the tonic that he needs."

Horner says it is crucial this season that both drivers are strong, given how tight the fight is for fourth place in the standings.

"It is extremely tight in that pack behind the big three and for us to achieve fourth we need both drivers delivering, Mark was going to have a bad day at some point and that happened (in Canada) for whatever reason and the strategy didn't quite work out for him, and David has picked up where he left off," he said.

"We are now four points ahead of Toyota and fourth in the constructors' and it is going to be very, very tight to achieve that until the end of the year."

He added: "Fourth is the ambition for us, for Williams, for Toyota, for Renault - so we just want to make continual progress with this car, keep pushing, the team is working incredibly well as a unit.

"We have put performance on the car at each race, we are at a stage where we have to start balancing that with the 2009 big regulation changes."