Coulthard Says Win No Guarantee of Future Success

David Coulthard said it was too early say whether McLaren could end Ferrari's stranglehold on Formula One despite his victory in today's Australian Grand Prix.

The Scot captured his 13th career win and his second in Melbourne after a perfect race plan saw him take the lead 11 laps from the end and drive away to a nine-second victory.

Coulthard, runner-up to Michael Schumacher in the 2001 World Championship, said he was confident his McLaren would be closer to the Ferraris this year but the famous Italian team were still in front at this stage.

"I think pace-wise, we generally believe that we're competitive with Williams but still have a bit of a gap to Ferrari," he said.

"None of us know what the future's going to hold...but ultimately winning a Grand Prix is about how you perform on that given weekend and no one can take the result away from us today."

Coulthard started 11th on the grid, with the Ferraris of Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello first and second, but quickly started moving through the field after making a split decision to swap his wet tyres for slicks on the second lap.

He briefly held second spot midway through the race but was back in fifth after 35 laps when things suddenly started to go his way.

The 31-year-old moved to third when Kimi Raikkonen was ordered back into the pits for exceeding the speed limit, then second when Schumacher was also sent back in for some running repairs to his damaged car.

Coulthard took over the lead for the first time when Juan Pablo Montoya spun 11 laps from the end and safely made it to the checkered flag to win his second Australian title after his previous win in 1997.

"Well, I didn't actually overtake many people out on the track but we can gloss over that," he said. "I was trying to drive within myself and having made such a difficult job of qualifying I didn't want to do the same during the race.

"The team did a great job and had the right strategy which allowed us to optimise the unusual circumstances with the weather and the safety car."