David Coulthard Q&A

"It was a really difficult Grand Prix for us, and we found ourselves on the track with the wrong tyre at the wrong time. If the radio was working well and we'd just gone conservative on all the stops then we'd be probably be sitting on the podium or have some points anyway. The race was a real difficulty for the guys on the pitwall, because there was another frequency broadcasting on their radio, and it meant they couldn't get information to the pit crew, and the pit crew couldn't get the information. They could get in from the car, but they need confirmation from the pit wall to make a move. "



"It was just a communications thing. I'd radioed in to say I think we should be coming in this lap, and you have to get confirmation, otherwise you can end up with a scenario that was there at the next stop, when I just came in without the confirmation because I realised we were having some difficulty, and you saw the guys weren't ready for me. We missed that window, and by the time the team confirmed I was already past the exit of the pitlane, and then they said our information is that we think it's going to stop raining. As I was doing that lap I started to think maybe it's not so bad, and then it started to rain heavier. You can make good calls, but you need situations to go your way."



"We all knew that the weather was a potential hazard in this race, and you have to react to that. It started to go wrong from that first stop. Because of the communication difficulty on the radio you typically wait for a confirmation that that's what's going to happen, and it just slipped away from there. I was also having a brake difficulty which I had going to the grid, which meant I was running off the circuit at Club a lot of times."



"On the first one I was on the radio saying I think we should be coming in, and I was just waiting for the confirmation. I didn't get the reply until after I'd gone past the pitlane entry. Maybe I could have been more forceful in that scenario. But what you see is your little piece of track, you don't see the bigger picture. Then in between all this the team is getting some other radio message on their system, and then they say we think it might be clearing up, and I thought OK let's see what the next lap is like, and it started to rain heavier... Then obviously I said I'm coming in. I went for the shallow wets, which started to grain quite early, and as I was losing places I felt the right thing would be to come in for the slick, which I thought would be a nice, early decision. I got the slick and it rained some more! Then I came back and said I don't want the shallow wet again, I want the intermediates. They put the intermediates on and that was good, I was really competitive at that point. Unfortunately I was about 15 laps down! And then once I got on to the slick tyre I was just lacking performance. The Sauber was quicker than me at that point, and the tyres seemed to lose overall grip."



"The inter worked quite well under those conditions. But it was dry patches rather than a completely dry track. I think the Bridgestone, as we've seen in the past, can work on a damp track. The Michelin needs a bit more dry available. I also took some aero package off the car when I hit that bollard after Bridge, when I let Ralf through, so it lost a little bit of performance there. Just a bit of a disaster."



"I got some confirmations of stopping, but when I called in to say I was coming in, the pit crew heard me but the radio on the pit wall was jammed on some other frequency, so they didn't hear. Everything that could go wrong did."



"I just tried to give them as much warning as possible. We could talk to each other, but they were getting whatever the FOM broadcast is. Whenever they talked it cut out our pit wall, so providing they weren't talking, the pit could communicate with the car and I could communicate with them."



"I did swear, when I went past the pits, after the team had said come in... It's just frustrating, isn't it? In these conditions if you could just pick the nice conservative line on everything, you'll come out with something, and that's pretty much what my attitude was going into the race - just to call canny from where I was and see what came to me, because I didn't believe that I was quick enough in full wet or full dry conditions to win the race, so it was a question of getting something out of it, and I got nothing."



"Yes, I just didn't get enough of a run out of Copse, didn't quite have the momentum. I got inside and he left me the space, but I needed more of a braking [area] to be able to carry it. Because it's an open corner, the first part of Becketts, once he'd taken the corner, he had the line."



"I won't forget this one, but I'll try to! You really want to do well at home, but equally I've been around long enough to know that sometimes races just don't go your way, and this was one of them. We'll put it behind us, and Magny-Cours, here we come."