Coulthard urges Kimi to be patient
David Coulthard believes former team-mate Kimi Raikkonen must stand by McLaren if he is to rescue his world championship dream.
The Finn has seen three certain grand prix wins go begging due to mechanical problems, added to two 10-place grid penalties courtesy of Mercedes engine failures.
That has left Raikkonen three points adrift in the title race despite possessing the fastest car on track for three months.
Coulthard understands Raikkonen’s frustration at seeing the world title slip from his grasp with Fernando Alonso moving further ahead but has urged his former colleague to accept the recent failures with good grace.
He said: “You have got to feel for Kimi. He has been driving very well. If you take the team away he would be sat on the grid in his racing suit. You can’t just say ’the team has let me down’ because he is part of that process and he needs to take responsibility for success as well as failure.
“The McLaren organisation has to take it on the chin and he is part of that.”
Coulthard, who spent nine seasons at McLaren and three alongside Raikkonen, admits he is surprised to see the former world champions struggle for reliability.
The team has enjoyed clearly the best car for several weeks now but niggling reliability troubles have undermined their championship hopes.
Coulthard, who now drives for Red Bull Racing after leaving McLaren at the end of last season, said: “It’s surprising that they are having reliability issues because they are a great organisation with great processes to try and make sure these things don’t happen.
“I’d be as curious as anyone to try and understand what they think the reason is that they are having reliability issues.
“I experienced a lot of reliability issues at McLaren so in a way it’s not a surprise but they have all the processes in place for it not to happen.
“I would have thought they had a reasonable performance from the car this year. What they need to do is get the thing to finish. The opposition are doing that. At a certain point they have to tick all the boxes.”
Raikkonen insists he will heed Coulthard’s advice and not dwell on previous disappointments, vowing to focus on rescuing a strong result in Hungary this weekend despite his qualifying handicap.
The 25-year-old must start qualifying first, when a dusty track is expected to cost him around a quarter of a second compared to Renault’s Alonso, who starts last.
But Raikkonen has put his frustration to one side, saying: “It’s over. It’s not the first time unfortunately so you get used to it. It’s disappointing for everyone but we just have to look forward to this race. Sometimes these things happen. It’s not very nice but what can you do?
“We are in a difficult position for qualifying and this is one of the races where it is difficult being first out. It is quite difficult here because if you don’t have a good qualifying it is hard to get past people. We will see what we can do, we need to look for good tactics and see what happens.”
