Coulthard: I could have been closer

The Scot ended up third on the grid having leapfrogged Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams in the dying moments of qualifying.

"I lost about a tenth in the last sector of my final run, so it might have been closer," said this year's Monaco Grand Prix winner. "The nature of the track means that it's a real challenge to get all the sectors to fit together, so it's nice to qualify well here and hopefully we should be able to perform in the race."

Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen managed only sixth after being forced to switch to the spare McLaren following an accident during the morning practice sessions.

"I'm disappointed with sixth place, and the fact that I had to use my T-car didn't help," said the Finn. "The team did a great job of repairing my race car following the incident in practice, and although my race car was ready after I came back in from my first qualifying run we decided to continue using the spare for consistency. I'm optimistic for tomorrow's race as I will be back in my race car."