David Coulthard Q&A
David Coulthard's Italian Grand Prix was effectively ruined on the first lap when he lost his front wing on the back of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen's car. After a pit stop he emerged well and truly last, having lost some 46 seconds to the Finn. As early as lap 16 he found himself lapped by leader Rubens Barrichello. DC made up a lot of ground in the second half of the race, but ultimately had to settle for seventh place on a disappointing day for the team. Adam Cooper spoke to the Scot
"We all got off the line pretty well. Kimi went down the inside of Eddie, and Eddie ran wide. I was catching him on the track, and then he rejoined, Kimi hesitated a bit, and had a small lift. At that point I hit the back of him and broke my wing. It fell off straight away."
"Naturally it's very frustrating, but you have to average it out over the course of the season. You almost have to expect one incident in a grand prix at the start of a race, either you hitting someone or someone hitting you. A lot of people don't even make the first corner here, so it's one of those things. It's disappointing, but it wasn't intentional."
"I had to get a new nose and rattle round in circles. I lost a bit too much time letting Michael and Rubens through. I didn't want to get in their way at all, but I lost about three seconds. That just meant I didn't manage to get a point, so in hindsight I should have kept going and not made it too easy for them."
"It took me a long time to get into it. I changed tyres at the pit stop, as a precaution, so they were a scrubbed set. There wasn't as much grip obviously as the ones I started on, which were a new set. There was a lot of sliding, generally a lack of grip, and oversteer in the car. But we were quicker than those around us. In terms of race pace it was really Ferrari, Williams and McLaren."
"He drove well, but ultimately I was able to find a way past."
"It does. I've won here and I've had good results. It's disappointing that we didn't get a couple of points. But we have to accept it. Kimi also had a bad run, engine problems again, and that was disappointing. We've got to keep fighting."
"Probably as we saw here - Ferrari, Williams, McLaren."
"Obviously for all of us this season's been a disappointment, there's no question. We have, I think, made the most of our opportunities given the lack of qualifying performance. We're not far behind Williams, and that's just the way seasons go sometimes. Ferrari has made the rest look very average, because they've had such spectacular performance. In one sense I'm looking forward to getting into the development programme for next year. On the other hand I'm not looking forward to not racing in the winter, because that's my love."
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