Hill: 'DC is a future champ'

The 1996 winner feels the Scot is just coming into his prime as a driver and that if McLaren and Mercedes provide him with the right equipment he can take the fight to the Ferrari and Williams stars.

"I have to say that I doubted that he still could up until Monaco," said Hill, who now works as a studio pundit for Sky Formula 1 Digital +. "I think at the start of the year Coulthard believed that this was going to be his opportunity and when it became apparent that it wasn't he became depressed about it.

"But I think he surprised himself at Monaco and maybe even with his performance at Canada too. And I think that since then he's matured. He seems to be concentrating on the task ahead of him rather than what he'll be doing next year."

This year Coulthard has had to contend with having a fast, young team-mate in Kimi Raikkonen, but Hill reckons the 31-year-old still has his best year's ahead of him.

"I think that for drivers in F1 the peak years are between 30 and 35. That's when the combination of speed and experience seems to combine to allow a driver to perform to the best of their ability."

Ominously for Coulthard et al, Hill's theory means that Michael Schumacher has two more good seasons in him before he starts to go off the boil...