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| |  Sunday, 7 July, 2002, 20:24 GMT 21:24 UK Coulthard rues bad decisions Coulthard is 60 points behind leader Schumacher
David Coulthard has described his disastrous British Grand Prix as "horrible" and "a screw up from start to finish" after he finished second last in his McLaren. Coulthard made four pit stops to change his tyres - and often found himself on the wrong tyres for the changing conditions.
Coulthard said: "To be honest, this is a British Grand Prix I would prefer to forget. "I know I've never stopped four times in one race before, but we had communication problems due to interference on the radio, while I also had problems with my brakes. "It was a terrible Grand Prix for us. It was a screw up from start to finish, and whatever could go wrong, did go wrong. "It would be wrong to say that bad tactical decisions were made, and it would be wrong to be critical of the team because if we had had all the info then I'm sure we would have done different things." Coulthard came in to change to wet tyres two laps later than race leaders Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya.
He then changed back to dry-weather tyres as the rain eased off hoping to gain an advantage from an early change only for it to start to rain again. That brought him back into the pits five laps later, when he put on intermediate tyres, only to have to change them for dry-weather tyres after another eight laps because the sun had come out. "It's the most pit stops I've ever done, but the radio problems meant it was quite difficult to be specific about what tyre we wanted and whether I was coming in or not," he said.
"I also had a slight problem with the brakes prior to the race, so they had to fix that before the race. "It meant I had real difficulty in trying to stop the car at Club. I think I went off four times at that corner! "Then I had the spin trying to be lapped by Ralf, I didn't want to hold him up at all, but I ran wide and hit the polystyrene bollard." It was the latest in a long line of frustrating races for Coulthard. The Scot started the year hoping to be a championship challenger, only to find that his McLaren-Mercedes was not up to the job. "I just want to forget this year. It's been so disappointing." | |
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