David Coulthard has admitted that whilst he had expected thrills 'n' spills aplenty in last weekend's Canadian Grand Prix, he had not anticipated the greatest drama occurring in the pit-lane.
The experienced Scot ascended the rostrum for the 62nd time in his long
Formula One career in Montreal, and it could not have come at a more pivotal time, following a disastrous start to what is his 15th season in the top flight and suggestions that his
Red Bull Racing squad was already lining up
Scuderia Toro Rosso's
Sebastian Vettel to replace him.
What's more, it was achieved through a mixture of pace – with the race's seventh-fastest lap time to his name, quicker than team-mate
Mark Webber – consistency and keeping his head on a day when the poor track conditions of the under-fire Circuit Gilles Villeneuve caught out many a more vaunted name.
“I'm delighted to get a podium for the team,” the 37-year old stated. “They've had a lot of work on at the previous races and back at base.
"You can expect some unusual results here, so we fuelled it long, but we expected the incidents would occur on-track, not in the pit-lane!
“Nonetheless, the strategy worked well and all credit to the engineers, mechanics and everyone back at Red Bull for all their hard work.
"The start was pretty hairy with all the cars bunched up round turn one and turn two, but my goal was to get to the finish and get points, so to get my 62nd podium is a great result. This adds to the points Mark has already scored this season, and helps us build our total in the championship.”
Webber, by contrast, endured a somewhat anonymous afternoon on the Ile Notre-Dame, blaming a two-stop strategy for his eventual twelfth-placed finish, not helped by a late-race spin that cost him a spot to
Honda's
Jenson Button.
“I was on a two-stop strategy and David was on a one-stop,” the Aussie explained. “We were out of position a bit with what happened in qualifying yesterday, and it was difficult to recover from there. David's result brings a lot of points for the team though, which is very good.”
