Coulthard Expecting to Outdo Renaults in Race

Scot David Coulthard is confident of outperforming the Renault drivers at tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix despite losing out to them in today's qualifying.

Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Italian Jarno Trulli secured the first front row lockout for the French outfit this year, while Coulthard, winner of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix two weeks ago, had to settle for fourth position behind Ferrari's Michael Schumacher.

The McLaren driver, however, believes the Renaults will have to pit earlier due to a low fuel load.

"It's hard with these one lap runs to be completely satisfied with your performance particularly in these hot conditions," admitted Coulthard. "I made no big mistakes but I understeered a little at turn nine and the corner onto the back straight, so I was a little bit slower with the acceleration than I expected.

"As a result we could have been quicker but probably not as fast as the Renaults. However we hope that their strategy will see them pit earlier than us, and I think we can have a good race tomorrow."

Finn Kimi Raikkonen was also confident of his strategy after finishing seventh quickest after making a mistake during his flying lap.

"My lap today wasn't a disaster, but it wasn't brilliant either," he said. "I locked the rear of the car under braking at the hairpin, which lost me some time, but fortunately I kept the car on the circuit. We will see what happens tomorrow, as there is a different starting grid.

"As there is not a lot of testing time during a Grand Prix weekend anymore, we will see how everybody copes with the race distance and hopefully the people at the front are running on low fuel levels."