Coulthard Plays Down Red Bull Form

Scot Coulthard finished an impressive fourth in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after running in second for much of the race but he knows that his performance was silver lined.

"Under normal running circumstances you would expect us to be behind the big four teams," said Coulthard, who was boosted by an unusual qualifying session. "Christmas came early for the team to get two cars in the points in Australia.

"Here it should be different, but we were closer to the quickest pace than I would have expected going to Melbourne, so that gives us all a boost to get on with the job of putting things in place in the future."

Coulthard admitted he expects things to go backwards from now on because of Red Bull's lack of resources following their takeover of the Jaguar Racing team from Ford at the end of last year.

Red Bull have big ambitions, but that will take time to build and Coulthard, who is paid for each point he scores, believes this season will be one of damage limitation and the occasional bonus point.

"The dream is to reduce the gap to the big teams," said Coulthard. "But with a smaller factory and less resources why should we be able to do that? It's about reducing the (relative) increase in laptime that you see in the season.

"That said, I think our overall pace is better than where they finished with the Jaguar car (at the end of last year), and therefore it wouldn't be a surprise if we have opportunities again to score points."