Coulthard rues lack of pace

Coulthard was unhappy with the balance of his car in both qualifying and the race, and was unable to produce the same level of performance that saw him win his home race on two occasions previously.

"Unfortunately despite the MP4-19B's obvious progress I'm not happy about my own performance today," said Coulthard. "During practice and the race I was struggling with the balance of my car, mechanically, and I didn't feel comfortable especially in the slow corners. With each set of tyres I put on I didn't go any quicker at all.

"Now we've got graining control we don't wear the front tyre down, but it loses performance towards the end of the stint. You end up with a car that has both oversteer and understeer, so you end up four-wheel drifting through the corners. I think the Bridgestone tyres were more consistent in these conditions.

"We will be testing here at Silverstone on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I will work hard to sort out my set-up problems in order to be much more competitive at the next race at Hockenheim. We've got two cars running down in Jerez too."