Coulthard Seeks Qualifying Improvements

After winning his second race of the season at the Austrian Grand Prix, McLaren's David Coulthard has admitted that his team are still have to improve their qualifying performance in order to challenge rivals Ferrari.

"They (Ferrari) are still getting more out the car in qualifying and they're getting the tyres to work better," said Coulthard. "That's been the case in each of the Grands Prix except Imola where they run the hard tyre and we have to work on that. We can't rely on being able to get in front in the races, you've got to try and get the lead from the start."

Coulthard pulled off a better pit-stop strategy to secure the victory and was never concerned about the Ferraris of Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher behind him.

"There's no point driving really flat out if you've got track position," said Coulthard, whose chances looked bleak after qualifying in seventh position. "I can't say that I thought we were going to come away with a win. But I knew we were going to go forward and that's where you've got to go."

Coulthard now lies just four points behind championship leader Schumacher and believes that he must not let the world champion build a run of results and develop a gap at the front.

"There's still a long way to go but if we can keep in within a window of being in the lead then that's good," he said. "Let's just hope it keeps going."