Question: David, give us the background to your decision to retire?
David Coulthard: There is not one morning you wake up if you are looking for a date, but I have had a growing feeling that this year is the right time to make it my last year in F1. I am enjoying very much the challenge and the racing even though I had a few incidents at the beginning of the year. The thought process was there before then. I am still competitive with the machinery I have got. After 15 years I am clearly not going to battle for a World Championship and am unlikely to win another grand prix unless something remarkable happens this year. I feel fulfilled in the role I have played at Red Bull. I took that job a few years and I have helped the team grow and I have seen the team move forward and be taken seriously I believe in the paddock, not that they weren’t taken seriously before. But people didn’t know what to expect from Red Bull. I just think it is a good time. I will be 38 next year and nothing lasts forever. I have enjoyed my racing and now is the right time.
Question: Do you think it will be difficult to keep up the motivation for the remaining races?
David Coulthard: No. If I thought that I would be saying today that I would be stepping to one side. That is the other good thing about making the decision in that I have the motivation. I am enjoying the racing. I would hate to find myself in a situation where I wake up and think I do not want to go racing today. I am contracted to the season. I have seen it happen to other people I have been close to the sport who have been in that situation. It may be something that never happens, but I just don’t want to find myself in that situation. After 15 seasons I think that’s enough. The sport is in good hands with the other younger British drivers, so October in Brazil that will be it.
Question: And do you have any plans or are you open to offers apart from Red Bull?
David Coulthard: I will have a test development, consultant role with Red Bull Racing which will enable me to have an interest in F1 and the paddock. I will look at the other opportunities that might be there when the time is appropriate. For nice, emotional reasons I wanted to wait until Silverstone to make the announcement and now that it’s out, I can just get on with the racing. I hope we have a good weekend and that Red Bull can score some points. Maybe there can be a British winner and maybe we can all go home and think that was a good weekend for the sport.
Question: Any regrets at this point, anything you look back on and wish that hadn’t happened or you might have done better or whatever?
David Coulthard: Well, I could go back through lots of different things and think I could have done that better, but that’s not the way life works, is it? You make your choices at the time and going back to the ’98 thing in Melbourne, that was obviously something disappointing because it was misunderstood, a team instruction, and then obviously changing places with Mika, that was obviously a fairly defining moment. But there you go, that’s the journey of life. I don’t think it would be half as fun if everything was perfect all the time. It’s how you deal with those little hiccups and mistakes along the way which gives colour to one’s life. I presume for you it was running round Silverstone naked!
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