Coulthard Delighted with New McLaren

McLaren driver David Coulthard was full of praise for his team's heavily-modified MP4-19B machine after driving the car to third place in qualifying for the French Grand Prix on Saturday.

The British team, who were tipped as title contenders at the start of the year, have struggled this season and are currently lying fifth in the Constructors' Championship with a tally of just 17 points.

But Coulthard improved his best qualifying performance by six places when he finished just behind pole sitter Fernando Alonso and second-placed Michael Schumacher on the grid for Sunday's race at Magny-Cours.

The Scottish driver, who is yet to finish a race higher than sixth this season, admitted he is optimistic for the rest of the season after seeing the performance of the team's latest offering on its competitive debut.

"We are going to be pretty pleased with the result of this qualifying session," said Coulthard, who will line up next to fellow-Briton Jenson Button's BAR-Honda on the second row of the grid.

"Fuel-level wise we are where we would expect to be had we had the (previous car) 19 here, so you can say we have definitely taken a step forward and patched in some of the problems we had earlier on in the season.

"Any car that is doing a lap time is fun and in my experience, when you have a quick car then sometimes it is more difficult to drive than one that is further off the pace. It is tricky but if it is doing the lap time I don't mind."

Finn Kimi Raikkonen, who finished as runner-up to World Champion Schumacher in last year's title race, failed to match his teammate's pace and will start from ninth on the grid after making a mistake on his run.

But Coulthard is already looking ahead to a strong performance in Sunday's race and added: "Hopefully we can see a strong race and get some solid points and start building from here."