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Coulthard buoyant after surprise victory

David Coulthard was delighted with a winning start to the season in Melbourne but admits that McLaren still has a lot of work to do if it is to rival Ferrari this year

Coulthard took advantage of mistakes from Michael Schumacher (who damaged his Ferrari by going off), Juan Pablo Montoya (who spun his Williams out of the lead) and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen (who was caught speeding in the pits) to win in Melbourne on Sunday.

Coulthard said: "I think our performance showed that we have taken a step forward with the MP4-17D. Qualifying positions aside, we certainly believe ourselves to be as competitive as Williams if not Ferrari at the moment, but we are hopeful that the new car will close the gap when it comes out. That's why this is such a good start.

"I didn't actually overtake many people on the track today, but we'll gloss over that! Based on the last four years we were expecting one Safety Car, but it was a surprise to get two. It's easy to get caught out in those conditions so I was trying to drive within myself. We'd made a difficult job of qualifying and I didn't want to do the same with the race," he added.

Coulthard started on wet tyres, but was forced to pit after just two laps for dry rubber. Raikkonen would have been in better shape to win the race for McLaren, having started from the pit lane on dry tyres and fuelled up to run a one-stop race, had it not been for his drive-through penalty.

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