Coulthard: My motivation is still high

"My personal motivation has always been to get 100 percent from myself and the car, and that is still the same," he said after finishing the first day of practice in Barcelona down in 12th place. "The reality is that you make the best of the situation you have. I don't think it matters what people predict at the start of a year. We felt we were going to build on last year, when we won four grands prix, but there's a long way to go because this season hasn't started the way any of us expected. But we will working through in a logical way."

Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen managed seventh place in today's free practice, 0.3s up on Coulthard, but clearly McLaren does not enjoy the same performance advantage it has had at Barcelona over the past four seasons, a fact readily acknowledged by technical director Adrian Newey (for separate story, click here.).

"We certainly had some balance issues today and we will be looking at that tomorrow," Coulthard said.

He denied that he is feeling any heat from new team-mate Raikkonen, who has outqualified him at two of the season's four grands prix to date.

"I'm not in F1 for an easy life," the Scot said. "I'm here to compete against the best drivers in the world and beat them. If I was afraid of competition I'd have taken a different career..."