David Coulthard Q&A

"Nothing's changed from the last race. It's just there's less points left to recover the situation. We all know it's a very high wall and it's a short rope that we're trying to throw up. I'm not going to say it's over until it's over, because why should I? Why should I say it's anything other than what it is, which is a difficult one, but lots of things can happen, like that shunt today at the first corner. It's an unpredictable sport. As such you have to keep an open mind, weekend to weekend. We looked so strong at Silverstone, and we looked pretty average here."



"A very difficult balance all weekend. I did a back to back this morning with the T-car and the race car, and the T-car was slower. To my mind something was not right, because we've had oversteer all weekend, hardly had any understeer, and it's a very difficult car to drive in that situation. In the race on lap two I was on the radio saying that there were incredible levels of oversteer on entry, and it just doesn't feel like the car that I've driven this year. And as a team we obviously need to try and understand that. I'm part of that process, I wasn't able to work it out in the time we had this weekend. And I didn't do the test last week in Monza. We don't have the opportunity to test before Hungary, but I would expect us to be a little bit more competitive there."



"I feel that I kind of need the break in a way, to stop and restart. The races have been coming, coming, coming. Maybe as a team we need to see exactly what we can test and what we can develop to work out how we can go forward in the last five Grands Prix. I've still got promotions until Friday, and that'll eat into the time available - the flight and travelling and all the rest of it, that's the other side of the business, which is very draining you know."



"It takes it out of you emotionally and physically. Just pre-Monaco I had a bit of a chest infection which I carried right through until after Canada. That sort of lost the momentum of training, which I'm slowly getting back into. But you need to have the levels of energy to keep pushing hard every weekend, and to enable you to ride over the disappointments. So when you're not quite in top form, all those disappointments take more out of you."



"Someone has to make a decision, and we all have to live or die with those decisions, so it's a very responsible position. But it's so unusual to have a red flag now, especially when a driver out, unhurt. I find, with the limited information I have at the moment, it difficult to accept because we'd already run over the debris. The red light came on as I went across the debris, so it wasn't because other cars were backing up - on my FIA light display. So they decided as we went over it. To my mind we could have all driven through slowly, because all the cars had to slow down anyway because the safety car was out. So if anyone was backing up into it like they did behind us, then they've obviously not paying attention to the boards or listening to the team. And they had two and a half minutes minimum to clean the track before they came round. So clean one side and let us go.

"I think you've got to have consistency. If a driver's hurt... with all respect unless a driver's hurt, they don't normally stop races. Accidents or injuries off the track is not normally a reason to stop the race. I heard something about a mechanic being hit by the debris [in fact a Jaguar team member was hurt in the rush to get pit equipment to the grid for the restart], and I hope he's OK, but I feel quite strongly that we should have consistency. There are lots of races that would have benefited from being red flagged, to give people the show. Because you want to see all the cars race. You don't want to see everyone pile into the first corner, go off, and a Minardi win. It's nice for Minardi, but...

"I said to the team that if you were cynical you could understand the reasons for the red flag. Dave Ryan said let's just concentrate on the race, which is fair enough. But you can't help but feel, and I'm talking to you armed only with what I saw, I don't have all the facts so I maybe talking completely out of turn. With a chance to have a little look at things and maybe talk to Charlie [Whiting] it will decide whether I change my mind or not."