A position Coulthard did not enjoy.
David stayed with Mclaren for another three years. 2000 saw David wrap up another Grand Prix victory at Silverstone which has earned him a place in the hearts of British fans.
In 2001, DC challenged Michael Schumacher for the World Championship, and although nobody will forget his courageous fight in Magny-Cours in arguably the best French Grand Prix to date (maybe tied with 1999), Schumacher had wrapped the title up by the Hungarian Grand Prix. This would be Coulthards peak.
2002 was a mediocre year for both Mclaren and Coulthard as they fell behind even BMW Williams.
2003 with Mclaren saw some flashes of speed but not enough pace to challenge too highly for the Championship. David won in Australia but no more. Raikkonen had now even surpassed DC.
2004 was a frustrating year for both Mclaren men, and it was clear DC needed a change of scenery. He and Raikkonen squabbled mainly with Renault over third place and Red Bull signed the Scot up for their maiden 2005 season and a new adventure began.
2005 saw a transitory year for both DC and for Red Bull. They scored points but little else with few results to rave about coming their way.
For 2006, Adrian Newey was on board from Mclaren and hopes were high for his influence to turn around the situation. For both 2005 and 2006, David Coulthard was the better of his two teammates with both Christian Klien and car-sharer Vitantonio Liuzzi lacking experience and precision that Coulthard possessed.
2006 saw David Coulthards hard work pay off as he took third place at the Monaco Grand Prix, the race he had won twice before with Mclaren. For 2007, Mark Webber joined the team from Williams and he and David settled into a very calm and experienced driver pairing.
The two men rarely fought on the circuit, however. Webber outpaced David from the start but it was a difficult year for the team which saw many retirements and few points. Points did come though, and Coulthard scored the first of them.
2008 will be David Coulthard’s final season in Grand Prix racing. At the half way stage, Coulthard has had a mixed final year with the most recent set back being a collision with Sebastian Vettel at the British Grand Prix on lap one.
He also had a number of drivers running into him at the outset of the season with a crash from Felipe Massa in Melbourne and another from Jenson Button at Bahrain.
There have been good races this season, however with another third place coming for David in the Canadian Grand Prix where he finished behind the winning BMWs in a race where experience and patience were needed.
We are sure not to see any retirement antics from David Coulthard that we have seen from previous retiring drivers such as Damon Hill, retiring a healthy car because he could not be bothered to finish the race.
He still loves racing and he still wants to win. He challenged the greatest driver in the history of Formula One for the championship in his career and was always there or there abouts in pace.
He was a top level racer and a man who deserves much of the credit for the progress of Red Bull who have surpassed even Toyota in the rapidity of their development. Coulthard can look back on an admirable time in the racing big time.
The future could hold anything for David Coulthard, but his time as a top line Grand Prix driver is going to end in the same way as did British legend Stirling Moss': A true and honorable gentleman driver with raw talent and firey sense of competition and fairness but always the nearly man.
Nevertheless fans and foes alike must pay respect to the Scot, he is a British great. He will be missed for 2009.
David Coulthard: Career in numbers
Grand Prix Starts:
247 (eventual to the end of the 2008 season)
Grand Prix Wins:
13
Pole Positions:
12
Points Scored:
533 (to date British Grand Prix 2008)
Teams Driven for:
Williams 1994-1995
Mclaren 1996-2004
Red Bull 2005-2008
....And millions of Formula One Fans.....
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