Coulthard is back but McLaren still struggle
David Coulthard has clambered on to the Formula One podium again but his McLaren team have plenty of work to do before they are back in business as race winners.
"It's been a while since I've been here," said the Scot after securing his first points of the season with a hard- earned third place behind the Schumacher brothers at Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix.
After three rounds, a mere four points -- 20 fewer than overall leader and four times world champion Michael Schumacher -- is not much for him to shout about.
It is even less considering that last year Coulthard, who celebrated his 31st birthday in Brazil last week, won in Sao Paulo to go into the European season with a far healthier six point deficit.
He still ended up a distant runner-up at the end of what turned out to be a record-breaking year for Ferrari and their four times champion.
More worryingly still, resurgent Renault gave both McLaren drivers a hard time in Brazil by powering past them at the start and are now only two points behind in the championship.
Coulthard had started fourth on the grid, with Kimi Raikkonen fifth, yet both Italian Jarno Trulli and Jenson Button forced their way past at the start.
The top British driver, by two points, is Renault's Jenson Button and not Coulthard, who has finished just one race so far this year and last appeared on the podium in Japan in October 2001.
NO HEADACHE
From being Ferrari's main rivals for the past three seasons, McLaren have been overtaken by Williams while being hard pushed to fend off Renault.
Michael Schumacher said in Brazil that he considered Williams to be Ferrari's biggest rivals and expected them to be fighting each other all the way.
But of course he would not write off McLaren.
"You never should discount any kind of top team and McLaren certainly is a top team," he said on Sunday, before adding: "We will certainly not be surprised if they are going to be back in business very soon."
The inference, however, was clearly that they are not that at present and Coulthard recognised there was a big gap between his team and this season's race winners.
"I haven't even seen what the gap was to Michael and Ralf but I think it was a massive gap so I think we would have struggled to get close to them," he said.
"We obviously haven't taken as big a step forward as the other cars during the winter," he added.
"We know this car is a quicker car than last year's when we have done the back-to-back tests, but we just haven't taken a big enough step, it's quite clear...We just need to work on each area of the car a little bit more."
