David Coulthard has admitted that a time will come when he feels he is ready to hang up his
Formula One helmet after a long and distinguished career in the top flight, as he prepares for what some believe will be his final British Grand Prix this weekend.
The experienced Scot – at 37, the oldest driver on the current
F1 grid – is a man with no fewer than 236 starts under his belt, yielding 13 victories, 62 podium finishes, 12 pole positions, 18 fastest laps and a staggering points total of 533, making him the most successful British driver of all time and fourth on the overall list, behind only multiple world champions
Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and
Ayrton Senna.
He has, however, endured a rough time of things in 2007 and 2008, being routinely out-performed in both qualifying and the races by
Red Bull Racing team-mate
Mark Webber and amassing just six points this season – all courtesy of his third-placed finish in Canada – to the Aussie's 18.
There has been much speculation that
Scuderia Toro Rosso's
Sebastian Vettel is as good as a shoe-in to replace Coulthard at the parent Red Bull outfit in 2009, and the Scot admitted post-Montreal to feeling nostalgic about his 15 years spent in the grand prix paddock [see separate story –
click here. He is seemingly in rather less sentimental mood this week, however.
“When that moment [retirement] comes, there you go,” he is quoted as having told reporters, by international news agency
Reuters. “That's the journey of life. You move on to the next thing.
“I am currently a grand prix driver, I have been for many seasons, and I am still sitting here as a grand prix driver because I enjoy it and I get a buzz from it.
“There will be a point, naturally, where that is not going to continue, and boo-hoo. There are a lot worse things that can happen to you, and you move on to the next challenge.”
