Coulthard Hopes to Keep Momentum in the Race

Scot David Coulthard is looking to keep third place at tomorrow's United States Grand Prix after a strong qualifying performance today.

The McLaren driver, winner of the Monaco Grand Prix this year, will start tomorrow's race from third position after jumping ahead of Colombian Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya during the final seconds of the session.

Today's was Coulthard's best qualifying performance since the Monaco Grand Prix, and the Scot was delighted.

"It was the best qualifying I've had since Monaco, so obviously I'm very happy with that," Coulthard said. "I knew there was a quicker time in the car, but I actually lost a tenth in that last sector. Otherwise, I could have been closer.

"It's nice to qualify well here at Indianapolis and hopefully we should be able to perform in tomorrow's race. The nature of the track means that it's a real challenge to get all the sectors to fit together.

"Now we are aiming to maintain the pace in tomorrow's race, where tyres will be play an important role."

Finn Kimi Raikkonen was unable to match the pace of his more experienced teammate, setting the sixth quickest time after being forced to use the spare McLaren due to an accident during practice. Raikkonen, however, is confident of a strong race with his race car.

"I'm a little disappointed with sixth place," said Raikkonen. "the fact that I had to use the T-car didn't help. The team did a great job in repairing my race car following my incident in the second practice session this morning, and the car was ready when I came back from my first run.

"However, we decided to continue using the T-car for consistency. My second run was the fastest and I was even quicker on my third, but I had to slow down due to the yellow flags. I'm optimistic for tomorrow's race as I will be back in my race car."