DC criticises Ralf response

Schumacher suffered a high-speed impact with the Turn 13 tyrewall on lap 10, but it was some time before any medical assistance reached him. He even attempted to get out of the car himself, despite having received a concussion.

"Someone told me that Ralf was sitting there for two laps with no-one with him, which I don't understand," said Coulthard. "Why would that have been the case? According to Sid [Watkins, the FIA's medical delegate], Ralf took 78g and was knocked out for a while. I'm disappointed if he was sitting there for a few minutes because that's life or death stuff. That needs to be looked at."

Coulthard also queried whether the race should have been stopped following the accidents of Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.

"After the crash I was on the radio to the team and my exact words were 'tell Charlie [Whiting, the FIA steward] to stop the race because there's too much debris and someone is going to get a puncture.' They said 'well, Charlie can hear the radios', so I said, 'right, Charlie, my opinion is that you should stop the race.'

"Obviously they chose not to and it took several laps to clear it up. In hindsight, they did such a good job clearing up the carbon. What I was worried about was doing the restart and going down the start/finish straight with bits of carbon flying everywhere. That stuff is nasty when it gets into a tyre.

"But they did a good job clearing and perhaps I was forgetting that they are used to clearing up loads of debris from big shunts here at Indianapolis. In hindsight I think Charlie was probably right to leave the race running."