Q & A with David Coulthard

David Coulthard: Well I only did six laps on Wednesday, and once past the pits - so I can't really say I felt anything. I can say it looks pretty, it is nice and I am enthusiastic because we have an Adrian Newey-led design team and a Renault engine. But, I don't know today what to expect from the year.

The logical expectation as we sit here today is that if I look at it, there are three divisions of Formula One. We were in the third division and we want to move up to the second division.

The dream would be to leapfrog to the first division and have an all-dominant 1998 McLaren, but that is not going to happen.

What I do believe can happen is that we can get in amongst the manufacturers in the middle of the grid and hopefully have a car that can score points competitively and consistently, and then podiums and maybe a win. But it is a difficult business and you have got to beat some great driver-team combinations to achieve that.

Q. Christian Horner has said he has never seen you more fired up and motivated. Is that a conscious effort, or part of the natural cycle of improvement?

DC: I am just living my life. I am sure I have changed during my decade in F1 and I can probably feel some of those changes. There are other areas that people will probably be able to point out to me. But I am not trying to do anything other than: This is it, this is my opportunity, let's get on with it.

Q. Lewis Hamilton had a big crash yesterday. Is that a classic young guy mistake?

DC: Right, I am going to be very clear with my words here because I don't want anything taken out of context. I got credited with saying that McLaren had made a bad decision and the guy is too young etc. But I never said that.

Lewis is clearly a talent. I know him, he is a friend and I have known him since he was a little boy. I have helped him at various points during his career when he came asking for help, so why would I want to say anything negative about someone I believe is a clear talent and deserves to be in F1?

What I made was an absolute factual observation in that he cannot know as much today as he will know when he is 24, because he will have two more years experience then. That is a fact. So in trying to make an obvious statement it got misunderstood, the quotes got picked out and it turned into this sensational thing.

So I see no link between his age and the fact he crashed a car yesterday, because Michael crashes cars and did at the end of his career. It has nothing to do with that. At McLaren, typically Mika, Kimi or I, would have one big shunt a year in winter testing through car failure.

When you push things to the absolute limit and you are designing news cars that have never run before then occasionally they fail. That is the risk side of the business. And they fail in testing when you have got the least medical facilities and the least safety standards, and that is why we have been pushing with the GPDA for a few years to get them up to the same standard (as races).

It was no surprise the crash was at Turn One, which is where you have the big ones at Valencia. I had a suspension failure there in a McLaren a few years ago and impaled the car on the barrier, so my first thought was the car failed.

But that may actually then cause the team to come out and say it is driver error. But it doesn't matter, it is what it is. You drive cars quickly and occasionally you drop them.

Q. Will it have a knock-on impact for the start of the season?

DC: If he is not sore, then the next time he gets in the car it will be forgotten. We (racing drivers) have an ability to have a very short memory, like a goldfish. And the ones who remember are the ones who retire.

Q. And what about time lost?

DC: Yeah, of course it impacts. It's like us, we have only got one set of wishbones for this car. I knew when I was shaking it down that if I damaged a wishbone or took a corner off the car then it would be sitting here on jacks, because you could not launch it as we would not have had the parts.

That is the difficulty when you are building a production up, but McLaren have got facilities, they have got depth. They will just delay an SLR and use parts from that!

Q. How is your working relationship with Mark going?

DC: It is still in its infancy really, because I know him more off track through the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA). You don't really know until you get to a race situation ultimately. I am very clear.

I am not trying to create any problems for him and I don't want him to create any problems for me. We have a duty to work together to develop the car as best as we can for the team and then we will go racing - whoever does the better job then, does the better job.

Clearly on paper it will look like a more competitive situation than I have had in the last couple of years, but after nine years of Mika and Kimi I don't think it was unfair for me to have a couple of easier years. And that is not without respect to Christian (Klien), Tonio (Liuzzi) or Robert (Doornbos), because at various points they were able to be in front of me. But let's go and see how it develops.

Q. Is there a lot of pressure on the team to perform this year because of Newey and Renault?

DC: Yep, correct. There is. I guess Christian might be a little bit nervous, Adrian might be nervous. But I don't feel nervous because ultimately I am only part of this bit. I need them to give me it on the racetrack and then I can go and find out if I can deliver.

Q. So was last year a bit of a shock then?

DC: Oh yeah. It was very disappointing. I expected year one to be difficult and year two to be logically better. But year one, because of the Bridgestone situation where they were struggling, it enabled us to be in amongst it a bit more than we would normally have been.

But nevertheless there were times when we were competitive - like at the Nurburgring we were doing lap times that Renault were doing in the race. I don't know how, but we were. And then there were races where we were further away.

Last year we were just third division. The car didn't cool itself, the development was cut after Monaco. It was the worst of everything.

Q. Have you had to adapt your driving style with the new Bridgestone tyres?

DC: Even if they don't change the name on the side of the tyre, the tyre is constantly developed, so you are always adapting your style. It is true to say that from Michelin to Bridgestone is quite a big difference.

The Michelin had a lot of front potential, you could carry a lot of speed into the corner and you had that support from the front axle. The Bridgestone is very light, like big balloons on the front of your car in some respects, but it gains performance in other areas.

Q. Looking at the competition from Mark. You are both quite intelligent, does that make it a more difficult partnership or more challenging?

DC: Well, F1 is all about challenge. So, I don't see anything being 'more of' as a problem particularly. The greatest rewards in life for me personally are the ones you have worked the hardest for.

If something is easy to get, then why bother? If you have got to work for something and put a lot of effort into something then you can really be proud of an achievement. It might not be that on a given day you beat somebody, but you might have achieved something beyond what you thought was possible on that given day.

So it is what it is. F1 is always two teams within a team. That is the way it has always been, and it is the team principal's job to manage that. Sometimes it is very clear who has got the upper hand and it is not really an issue, at other times there are more locking of horns during the year. But I would be surprised if it is any different than the relationship I have had with other quick teammates.

Q. But you welcome the locking of horns, don't you? Because surely that increases performance and progress?

DC: If it ends like that absolutely, but sometimes it can be detrimental to the team. I don't know right now what way it is going to go. I have an open mind on it.