Coulthard: 'we blew it with tyre choice'

Afterwards the Scot hit out at his McLaren-Mercedes team as a wrong tyre strategy left him in his worst grid position of the season for Sunday's race.

And he says he faces an uphill task to beat his rivals for runner-up spot in the drivers' championship Ralf Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, who start second and fifth respectively.

The performance is the second blow in a fortnight, as he saw his slim hopes of winning the world title go out of the window when Michael Schumacher won the last round in Hungary. Now his second place is under threat too.

The McLaren ace wanted to change to slicks in the final minutes on an ever-drying track, just as team mate Mika Hakkinen had done, but his team said there wasn't time.

The Scot was on course to start the 14th round of the world championship third, until he was bumped down the order in a flurry of fast laps by rivals on slicks.

"There are a lot of cars in my way and you have to say Ralf and Rubens are in a very strong position," he said. "It could all change, but I would still prefer to be near the front because where I am there are extra cars and spray.

"It was really a very bad performance all round," he added. "We now have to sit back and say we have not done a good enough job. More often than not we have been caught out this year. It is all part of the process and we should try and learn from them.

"I am ultimately unhappy with the decision that was made. I am very disappointed because we just got out of sync with where we should have been with the tyres. It was based on the fact that we had run out of time.

"Hindsight is always a wonderful thing I know, but clearly all the cars in front of me were on slicks. I should have been out on dry tyres at the end. When I went out on the first set it looked like it was drying out very quickly, and the team wanted me to do a four lap run at the end.

"I didn't feel that was the right thing to do because the tyres don't last four laps on a drying track. Admittedly, it is always going to be tricky in these conditions but I had to make the best of a bad job and we paid the price.

"However, I remain as determined as ever and my goal remains to win individual races."

The performance is a blow to Coulthard's hopes of finishing a career-best second in the championship, having finished third four times in six years.

Juan Pablo Montoya starts on pole and Schumacher junior second - a massive boost for Williams-BMW looking to close McLaren's 13-point advantage in the constructors' championship. While his other drivers' title rival, Barrichello, is almost out of reach too in fifth place.

"It is going to be very difficult to pass them," added Coulthard. "I will try to do whatever I can, but I have a Benetton in front of me, my team mate and Jacques Villeneuve."