Coulthard: Qualifying Struggle Now Behind Me

David Coulthard believes his "difficult period" is now behind him after he overcame his apprehensions of one-lap qualifying ahead of Sunday's French Grand Prix.

Coulthard has struggled to get to grips with the high-pressure sessions that were introduced to spice up the action this season and has started from the middle of the grid in three of the last four races.

McLaren-Mercedes managing director Martin Whitmarsh warned the Scot to up his game after he fluffed his chances in the European Grand Prix. But Coulthard fired back with a good performance to match teammate Kimi Raikkonen on Saturday.

"The problem that the team has is that apart from me and Kimi, no-one else is a driver and so they have to try to think of positive ways to help us," said Coulthard. "Inevitably you go through difficult periods in form - it happens to all sportsmen - but hopefully that is behind me now.

"That was a more solid qualifying than we have seen recently so from that point of view I am happy."

Coulthard admitted, however, that he had been concerned about messing up again in the qualifying session at Magny-Cours despite being told to relax and let his driving become more fluid. He enjoyed a smooth lap, however, and after finishing less than a tenth behind Raikkonen he insisted he could have been ahead of the Finn if he had not been so tense during the run.

"I was carrying a little more apprehension into the session than the others because there hasn't been a good Saturday for me in a while," said Coulthard. "If I was a little freer I could have pulled out two or three tenths out of it."