As he gears up for his Formula 1 swansong in Brazil, David Coulthard uses his exclusive itv.com/f1 column to explain how he will be approaching the weekend and what he hopes to achieve.
He also reflects on his run-in with Nick Heidfeld in China, argues that the widely ignored ban on team orders should be scrapped, and gives his take on the title duel.
My Chinese Grand Prix was largely defined by what happened in qualifying, when my final Q1 lap was compromised by Nick Heidfeld overtaking me into the last corner of our respective out-laps and I failed to make Q2.
That left me way down the grid with no realistic chance of scoring points – which was very frustrating, as you may have gathered from my comments on ITV!
I was fairly outspoken in my criticism of Heidfeld because it just seemed ludicrous that he would disadvantage both of us by planting his car down the inside like that.
I was even more miffed when he aborted his lap having already done enough to get through to Q2 anyway, while I missed the cut by less than 0.1s.
The stewards agreed that I’d been impeded and gave Heidfeld a three-place grid penalty, but of course that didn’t undo the damage to my starting position.
When I talked to Nick later he was at pains to emphasise that he hadn’t screwed me deliberately; a miscommunication with his team meant he thought there was less time left in the session than there actually was.
Apparently at the previous race he’d missed Q2 because he didn’t get his lap in, so he was a bit anxious about the same thing happening again.
So it was one of those things that with the benefit of hindsight he would have handled differently.
From 15th on the grid I committed to doing a one-stop race. My underlying pace was good – quicker than our sister team Toro Rosso, which hasn’t been the case for several weeks – but 10th place was as far as I could get.
Drawing a blank
At least Heidfeld and I discussed the qualifying incident and I gained an understanding of the circumstances. I’m still none the wiser about what Kazuki Nakajima was thinking when he rammed me at the first corner at Fuji and broke my suspension, triggering the crash that then totally destroyed the chassis.
It never crossed his mind to come and talk to me, or to say anything – it was as if the incident had never happened.
Nakajima was directly behind me on the grid in China, so I went up to him before the start and said: ‘Just so you know, I’ll be braking at the first corner.’
And he just deadpanned ‘Yep, OK’ as if I was being completely serious and not at all tongue-in-cheek!
Unfortunately in the one year that he’s been in Formula 1 I’ve had three collisions with him – and not once was there so much as a ‘Sorry about that’ or ‘Why did you brake there?’
I struggle to understand that mentality. If it was Michael Schumacher, for instance, he would either come and say ‘You braked too early at the first corner and that’s why I hit you’, or he would say ‘Sorry, I misjudged that’ – but he wouldn’t just be oblivious to it.
Come clean on team orders
One thing China highlighted was the absurdity of the ban on team orders.
For the perfectly understandable reason that Felipe Massa is their championship contender, Ferrari saw to it that their two cars swapped positions in the closing stages of the race, when Kimi Raikkonen slowed to let Massa past.
I have no problem with that, and nor do I think have most F1 fans.
But then we had the farcical situation in the press conference of the two Ferrari drivers being asked about their “exciting battle” for the lead – when it was obvious to everyone watching that the change of position had been choreographed.
I think if you take people for fools, ultimately you lose credibility.
Everyone who follows Formula 1 knows what’s happening and knows that team orders exist.
What’s more, they always have done. If you go back in the history of the sport, it wasn’t uncommon for drivers to pull into the pits and hand over their cars to their team-mates to finish the grand prix.
Those are the foundations of the sport, and to try to ignore that and disallow team orders is extremely difficult.
If it wasn’t as obvious as Kimi made it in China it would just be done in a more subtle way, at a pit stop or whatever.
Personally I think we should openly acknowledge that Formula 1 is a team sport, which involves teams supporting one driver over another in certain circumstances.
To pretend otherwise is ridiculous, as we saw in China. It’s surely time to end the charade.
Title cliffhanger
With a seven-point lead heading into the last round, the championship is Lewis Hamilton’s to lose.
On paper, with a quick car and only needing a fifth-place finish, it should be a formality; but as we saw last year, Formula 1 is unpredictable and a split-second misjudgement or piece of bad luck can change everything.
Inevitably people are asking whether Lewis can handle the pressure after his mistakes at Fuji and at the end of last year.
I wouldn’t criticise him for having a go in Japan, because that’s in his DNA – that’s what makes him the driver he is.
But it will be interesting to see how he plays it in Brazil. The run-in to the first corner in Brazil is quite tricky: it’s downhill braking, a tricky late-apex corner and incidents could happen.
I think Lewis will be able to discipline himself.
He just needs to approach the race weekend as normal and qualify as well as possible, because the safest place to be is pole position.
The pressure is on Felipe in that he has it all to do: he has to nail qualifying and he has to win, and even then that might not be enough.
I think Massa is probably the most improved driver of the year, because although he’s always had speed, he’s shown fighting spirit like in Budapest and he’s been more consistent than in the past.
He’s also suffered more reliability problems than Lewis has, so it would be difficult to say he doesn’t deserve the championship.
But equally Lewis has driven some extremely strong races and he’s the real deal – so either way it’s going to be an exciting end to the season and we’ll have a deserving champion.
Bringing down the curtain
People have been asking how I feel on the eve of my final grand prix, and the truth is that the emotion hasn’t yet hit me – I’m not a particularly sentimental person on a day-to-day basis.
I’m sure when I get into the car on the grid for the last time the significance won’t be lost on me, but I’ll be following my normal routine in the run-up to the race and I plan to approach everything the same way I always do.
Naturally when you’ve been around as long as I have there’s some interest from the media, but I think everyone will be so focused on the championship battle that it will allow me to get on with my weekend.
The one thing I really hope is that I’ll see the chequered flag; my last race is due to last 71 laps and I don’t want to be short-changed!
If I could score a point or two that would be the ideal way to sign off my career.
It’s amazing how quickly my 15 years in the sport have gone by, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them and I’ll soon be ready to move on to the next phase in my life.
David Coulthard was speaking to Alex Sabine
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