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Crying won't help, says Coulthard

David Coulthard says that tears will not help after McLaren's abysmal qualifying performance for the Austrian Grand Prix torpedoed his world title hopes, but sorting out the gremlins in his Mercedes-powered car will

Coulthard, who is second in the championship, believes his chances of making it onto the podium are slim after qualifying seventh for Sunday's race, just ahead of McLaren team mate Mika Hakkinen in eighth.

The Scot was troubled by oversteer problems during the hour-long session at the A1-Ring and qualified nearly eight-tenths slower than pole-sitter Michael Schumacher.

"Tears are not going to help me improve my qualifying performance," said Coulthard. "What we have got to do is sit down and sort out what went wrong. We had too much oversteer in comparison to the morning session and in the time we had, we were not able to sort the problem out.

"We also did not have the confidence to attack the lap. We are actually slower this afternoon than we were this morning, so you can clearly see the car is capable of going quicker. I am very disappointed, but we have got to work as a team to sort this out for the race."

But Coulthard has admitted he thinks it is unlikely he will make it five podium finishes out of six races this season.

"I hope to still get on the podium," said Coulthard, "but I think from seventh on the grid on this track, with all those cars in front, it is going to be very difficult. If we can come out of the race with a point or at least a couple, then that is probably the best we can hope for.

"Many things happen in Grands Prix, and cars do drop out. It is not impossible to win from there, but it will be very hard."

For full qualifying results, click here.

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