DC not worried if Kimi is quicker

"Well, you don't have to be a brain surgeon to work out it ain't going to be good, is it?" said Coulthard. "But, the fact is that Kimi is quick and on that basis it would be unlikely for me to think I'm going to be in front of him all the time. And he's got every chance to be as quick at the beginning as he has at the end."

Coulthard, who set a blistering pace in the final pre-Australia test session in Spain, also believes that his comparatively extensive F1 experience will not necessarily translate into a meaningful advantage in terms of speed.

"It's not like he has just learnt to walk," he said. "Kimi has been racing for a number of years. The experience thing maybe only counts in terms of drawing on information from the team in the past, but he has done a complete year and he knows how to drive a car quickly. I recall when I started in F1 with Williams, I started at the front and I don't remember any big pressure with that because you're just concentrating day-to-day.

"As you gain experience, you start to see the bigger picture and you become of more use to the team in the course of a season. But it can also wear you down a little bit because you are involved in some of the decisions, so I'm trying to find the balance between having that sort of pure seat-of-the-pants driving, not thinking too much, and using experience to help me."