Bernoldi “very scared” by confrontation

Despite a superior engine and chassis, Coulthard spent almost 40 laps behind the Asiatech-powered Arrows as he tried to fight his way back up the field after stalling on the formation grid. The Scot did not finally pass until Bernoldi pitted for fuel and fresh rubber.

The diminutive Arrows rookie says the head of McLaren and the boss of Mercedes' motorsport programme marched up to him in the pit lane afterwards.

"They were both very aggressive," he said. "They told me, 'if you continue drive again in that sort of way you are not going to be in Formula 1 very long'. I was very scared because they were very aggressive."

He finished eighth as Arrows joined Ferrari as the only teams to get both of its cars to the finish of the toughest race of the year. The Brazilian denies he ignored marshals' instructions to move aside for Coulthard - or that he had done anything wrong.

"There wasn't a blue flag," he said. "If there was, and I had ignored it, I would have been disqualified, wouldn't I? The team just kept telling me to concentrate on my position and push. There was a lot of pressure from Coulthard because he was of course, faster than me. He set pole position after all.

"I don't think I was unfair to him. I am on the track to race and to improve myself so one day I will be in his position. It was not easy to drive with him behind. There was so much pressure so I was worried about making mistakes. I was thinking, because he was so close to me, if I hit the wall he would hit me too.

"I was not holding him back deliberately. I was not braking on the inside. Monaco is a difficult race to past, but I just drove my normal race. I thought that he would past me earlier but I was going flat out every lap. He couldn't go flat because he was behind me, and there was a lot of downforce [on my car]."