Red Bull praise 'exemplary' Coulthard

The Scot, at 36 the oldest driver in the field, claimed Red Bull's first points of the season in a circuit where he made his Formula One debut in 1994.

Coulthard had to fight a gearbox problem during the last three laps of the race, but he still managed to stay ahead of Williams' Nico Rosberg.

"David was exemplary today," said Horner. "He had good pace, a good start and a good strategy. Despite a problem that gave us all a bit of a scare in the last three laps, he found a way to drive round it by using all his experience. He was able to bring the car home in fifth position and get us onto the scoreboard.

"I'd like to acknowledge the huge effort made by the whole team. Everyone's been working hard over the last few weeks, but we still need to keep pushing."

Coulthard had not finished in the points since last year's Hungarian Grand Prix, and the Scot admitted he was pleased with the progress of his team following a tough start to the season.

"Towards the end of the race, I lost third gear and thought I was going to have to retire the car," admitted Coulthard. "I managed to drive using only fourth gear and above, which lost me time in the last sector, but I was still able to be quick in the first.

"We've made more progress than any other team since the beginning of the year and when you're aggressively attacking lap times, sometimes you have to put other areas of the car to one side.

"That's the growing pains we're going through at Red Bull Racing at present, but I think everyone agrees we'd rather have pace and show we're genuinely quick - and then work on reliability, than have a reliable car that only finishes tenth."