25/07/2004
NEWS STORY
Team McLaren Mercedes driver David Coulthard finished today's Mobil 1 German Grand Prix in fourth position scoring five points for Team McLaren Mercedes. Kimi Raikkonen retired on lap 13 after a rear wing failure on his car. Kimi set a new lap record and the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1:13.780. David was on a three stop strategy, stopping on laps 10 (7.6 seconds), 28 (7.6 seconds) and 47 (8.3 seconds). Kimi stopped on lap 11 (8.9 seconds). David is now seventh in the Driver's World Championship with 19 points ahead of Kimi who has a total of 18 points. Team McLaren Mercedes is fifth in the Constructor's Championship with 37 points.
David Coulthard: "I had some balance problems throughout the race following the incident on the first lap when Barrichello hit me from behind at the first corner. In addition I picked up some debris from Kimi's accident which broke the deflector on my front wing. The team worked hard in the pitstops to try and dial out the understeer, but the problems continued. I was looking forward to mounting a real challenge for the podium today, but it just wasn't possible."
Kimi Raikkonen: "Obviously I'm extremely disappointed as things were looking good, and there was no doubt that we were in with a good chance of winning the race. I lost a place at the start to Alonso as he was extremely fast off the line, but I retook second place a few laps later and was able to keep up with Michael. I was quicker than him after my first pitstop and only needed a few more laps to be able to mount a real challenge for the lead. All of a sudden I just lost downforce and then I was a passenger. It's never nice not to finish a race, but at least we know that the pace is there. We are competitive and I'm looking forward to continue our challenge for victory in three weeks time in Hungary."
Ron Dennis: "Obviously we are disappointed particularly as we had a real chance of winning the race, but there is no doubt that we have taken a great step forward. Kimi retired with a structural failure on his rear wing ? the reason for which we will investigate thoroughly. As it was a manufacturing mistake rather than a design problem there was no danger of the same thing happening to David. However his race was hampered when he picked up some debris which damaged his front wing and deflector quite early on. We are now all looking forward to the three week break and the Hungarian Grand
Prix."
Norbert Haug: "Kimi was closing the gap to Michael Schumacher with a good chance of an attack when his rear wing broke. The reason for this we have to investigate. David's performance was hampered after Barrichello had hit him and slightly damaged the rear of his car. In addition to this David had a problem with his deflector, which was broken after he had picked up some
debris. So he couldn't do better than fourth place in the end. It's a pity
that we couldn't turn our speed into a podium finish today. "