David Coulthard

DAVID COULTHARD EXCLUSIVE

In his latest column for ITV-F1.com, David Coulthard looks back on the British Grand Prix, his 2008 Red Bull Racing deal and testing at Spa.

But Britain's most successful active grand prix star also reveals continued passion for the sport and why he fights so hard for safety in testing.

It felt great to confirm that I will be racing for Red Bull again in 2008.

We’ve known this for some time, but it was still good to get it out in public last weekend.

Instead of talking about performance, value and what you deliver, quite often paddock rumour centres on who's old and who's young, which is irrational.

That's why whenever speculation turned to my future and driver ages, I talked about how I was looking to next year's potential.

My intentions have always been clear and now we can put all our focus into the business of trying to improve our current performance.

Through the Silverstone weekend I struggled to put a lap together and that puts you on the back foot.

Even in the race I was still uncomfortable with the balance and that, coupled with mistakes on my part, lost me quite a bit of time, and inevitably being lapped cost me even more.

That meant I dropped behind the two Hondas.

In terms of actual pace their one-stop strategy wouldn’t have beaten our two-stop, but when you throw in other factors you end up slipping back.

What's been a little bit surprising is that the race balance in Magny-Cours gave us more understeer than we'd expected and then at Silverstone we had more oversteer than expected, so for the last two weekends we haven't had a consistent race car.

The atmosphere at the British GP was fantastic.

There was obviously a tide of people there because of Lewis Hamilton's fantastic run of results.

And his pole lap on Saturday was like the script from a perfectly written movie. To do it right at the end of the session was extra special.

It was everything a sporting spectacle should be – the crowd in tune with the performers and reacting to them.

After qualifying, listening to those air horns going off and the crowd cheering was amazing.

The atmosphere before the start of the race was fantastic as well. It was an honour and a privilege to be one of the competitors out there.

Yet when you close your visor it is a race like any other.

Some of the journalists asked me what it’s like racing in the shadow of all this, but those people don't understand my motivation.

It’s not about having the spotlight on me. Even when I was winning GPs, I didn't want that kind of attention. I do it for me and my team. It's never been about column inches and record sales.

As for the celebrity count, I don't think it was all down to one individual!

F1, under the management of Bernie Ecclestone, retains its position as one of the most watched and elite sports in the world, and with the paddock being so strictly controlled, access is a bit of honour and there is nothing quite like a celebrity to help endorse that.

For example I'm sure Honda got more out of the Beckhams being there than they did out of any of their race performances this year.

Much of the news coverage this weekend focussed on the spy scandal involving McLaren, Ferrari and Honda.

In my view the whole saga is disappointing. This isn't a Hollywood movie where when you get to the end credits it's the end of the story.

This could have a long-lasting damaging effect to the integrity of the sport.

The spin doctors will say there is no such thing as bad publicity, and that if it gets columns inches in newspapers and magazines then it alerts more people to F1.

But I think the sport is strong in its media coverage right now and the type of companies that invest in F1 consider any whiff of insider trading on technology to be a taboo subject.

I don't doubt Ron Dennis and McLaren's position on it.

They are too clever and their integrity is too high to be involved in that. As to who's responsible and how far it goes, it will all come out in time I'm sure.

The truth is it does happen sometimes. It's not good, it's not sporting and it should really have no place in F1 competition. It's as dodgy as blood-doping in cycling.

F1 returns to Spa for a major test this week and I confess I have never tested there before.

I am nervously excited about the prospect. Nervous because it is such a challenging, high speed track and somewhere like Eau Rouge has obviously claimed some cars over the years.

That's fine when you have grand prix medical facilities.

Improving testing safety facilities is one of the things the GPDA has campaigned hard on over the years.

On a long track like Spa you need a fast response vehicle so that the medical team is on the scene immediately should there be an incident.

To my mind there is no reason why there should be fewer emergency facilities at a test than there are at a race.

At a test you do over 100 laps whereas at a race you do 60 laps, so logically you have 66% more chance of an incident – and you are using prototype parts.

The FIA have always been clear that what they do is license the track, but they don't administer the tests.

They have always said that they are very happy to administer the tests, but the teams don't want that because they don't want the tests to be over-regulated; they need an element of freedom.

Typically all that was required for a test was a helicopter, a marshal and a doctor. What we found out is that sometimes that doctor is an ear, nose and throat specialist or a gynaecologist.

That’s why the GPDA are trying to improve the standard and the numbers.

It’s all about rapid response – you’ve got to have someone at the incident as soon as possible.

The situation is improving through the combined efforts of the GPDA and the teams.

In a meeting at Suzuka three years ago, the team principals undertook to share the costs of whatever is necessary to have the absolute minimum doctors and emergency services available.

There is an increased cost that is shared amongst the teams, but it's thousands as opposed to tens of thousands of pounds per test.

So it is completely manageable and it is to the benefit of everyone.

Coulthard gets married in 2008

Red Bull Racing Team driver, David Coulthard, the playboy of F1, is getting married with his Belgian fiancée, Karen Minier. The Scotsman declared this weekend that he and Karen will get married in March 2008, somewhere in the Caribbean.

He said "She's experienced a lot of what life has to offer. And she's a great judge of character, what is why she is engaged to me. Faithfulness is not something that has featured in my values [but] i've always had a romantic vision of marriage and children at some stage of my life. Time will tell how long it lasts. It might be a few years, might be a lifetime. What I do know is that I don't want to let her down - and that was never a worry in the past."

Grand Prix of Germany

Qualifying

1 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:31.450

2 F. Alonso McLaren 1:31.741

3 F. Massa Ferrari 1:31.778

4 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:31.840

5 R. Kubica BMW 1:32.123

6 M. Webber Red Bull 1:32.476

7 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:32.478

8 J. Trulli Toyota 1:32.501

9 R. Schumacher Toyota 1:32.570

10 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:33.833

11 N. Rosberg Williams 1:31.978

12 A. Wurz Williams 1:31.996

13 G. Fisichella Renault 1:32.010

14 R. Barrichello Honda 1:32.221

15 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:32.451

16 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:32.838

17 J. Button Honda 1:32.983

18 S. Speed Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:33.038

19 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:33.148

20 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:33.151

21 A. Sutil Spyker F1 1:34.500

22 M. Winkelhock Spyker F1 1:36.940

Grand Prix of Germany

Race

1 F. Alonso McLaren 2:06:26.358

2 F. Massa Ferrari + 8.155

3 M. Webber Red Bull + 1:05.674

4 A. Wurz Williams + 1:05.937

5 D. Coulthard Red Bull + 1:13.656

6 N. Heidfeld BMW + 1:20.298

7 R. Kubica BMW + 1:22.415

8 H. Kovalainen Renault + 1 laps

9 L. Hamilton McLaren + 1 laps

10 G. Fisichella Renault + 1 laps

11 R. Barrichello Honda + 1 laps

12 A. Davidson Super Aguri + 1 laps

13 J. Trulli Toyota + 1 laps

Did not finish

14 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 24 laps

15 T. Sato Super Aguri + 40 laps

16 R. Schumacher Toyota + 41 laps

17 M. Winkelhock Spyker F1 + 46 laps

18 N. Rosberg Williams + 58 laps

19 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso + 58 laps

20 S. Speed Scuderia Toro Rosso + 58 laps

21 A. Sutil Spyker F1 + 58 laps

22 J. Button Honda + 58 laps