DC disappointed with stop-go

The Scot jumped the start by fractions of a second as he anticipated the lights and a 10 second stop-go penalty destroyed his chances of victory, although he recovered to claim fifth.

"I just anticipated wrongly," said Coulthard. "Obviously, I planned to get the better start and to be leading out of the first corner, but not with the jumped start. And I think that my start without jumping would have been good enough, but I made a mistake and you pay the penalty."

Coulthard manged to hold off a charging Michael Schumacher until the German squeezed past on lap 6, but the battle became immaterial after DC was called in for his penalty.

"You have to take risks, you have to try to anticipate and I just overdid it," Coulthard continued. "I moved and then tried to stop, but then the lights changed, so I went.

"What has happened in the past is that if you start and then stop again, and they see that you're actually at a standstill before you go, then they tend to let you off with that.

"But because I didn't actually come to a complete standstill, I got the penalty. I would have struggled to live with Michael in the damp conditions but I had a very good car for the dry."

Coulthard is now mathematically out of the title race as he trails Schumacher by 25 points with two rounds remaining.