Moss Fears Coulthard Will Not be Champion

Britain's Stirling Moss, the greatest driver never to win the Formula One World Championship, fears his compatriot David Coulthard may be destined to suffer a similar fate.

"I'm afraid I don't think he will be champion," the 73-year-old said today after speaking at a press briefing to boost next month's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, a race Coulthard won in 1999 and 2000.

"I think David is a really good driver but I don't think he's a great," said Moss.

"And I think that in Kimi (Raikkonen) and (Fernando) Alonso you see two guys who are potentially going to be really great," he added.

McLaren's Coulthard, overall runner-up in 2001, won the opening race of the season in Australia but is currently seventh in the drivers' standings, 29 points behind Ferrari's World Champion Michael Schumacher. His teammate Raikkonen, who had led until the last race in Canada, is three points adrift of the German. Spaniard Alonso is third for Renault.

Moss, Championship runner-up three times to Argentina's Juan Manuel Fangio and once to Britain's Mike Hawthorn between 1955 and 1958, won 16 races and by the early 1960s was the highest-earning driver of his day.

He said Coulthard could get back in the Championship frame but the bigger question was whether he could beat Raikkonen.

"I must say I wouldn't like to be in David's position," he said. "It's really difficult to have a young bloke like that (alongside) who is good. Kimi is a young guy and he really goes, let's face it.

"I think David is very good, he'd be an excellent World Champion. He's got the right look about him and everything else but I don't know whether he's got the speed that Kimi's got," said Moss. "That will be an interesting thing that we may see at Silverstone, who is going to be the faster of the two."

Team boss Frank Williams, with whom Coulthard took his first victory in 1995, was more optimistic about a driver who has won more races (13) than anyone else currently in Formula One, other than Schumacher.

"He's a canny old Scotsman...we've not seen the end of David, David is immensely skilful and I would think looking at him probably the fittest man in Formula One," he said.

And Raikkonen? "I think he's wonderful," said Williams.