But it took less than an hour for Coulthard to damage his car as he made a miserable start to practise for the latest race in Hungary this weekend.

With five minutes of the first of the two hour-long practice sessions remaining at the Hungaroring, Coulthard ran wide at one corner, his McLaren then bouncing along a raised portion of the kerb and shattering the undertray, showering the track with debris.

Coulthard, 37 points adrift of Michael Schumacher in the drivers’ championship with just five races remaining, was then forced to sit out the second timed run due to the damage to his car.

For the 30-year-old, who admitted after the last race in Germany he was struggling to find the physical and mental energy to continue his uphill championship battle with Schumacher, this latest blow will have done little to raise his spirits.

Coulthard is to lodge a complaint with race director Charlie Whiting, and given Ferrari are also understood to have made their feelings known, the offending kerb looks certain to be removed ahead of qualifying tomorrow.

‘‘I made a mistake going into the corner - I understeered wide,’’ conceded Coulthard. ‘‘But there’s a different type of kerb there.

‘‘When I looked at the circuit yesterday I thought then it would be difficult to have something like that on the exit of a corner because they are two and a half inches high.

‘‘They are not ramped up. You just run straight into them. So in this case I ran wide and smashed the underside of my chassis, so I’m going to have to change cars for tomorrow.

‘‘I’m a little bit surprised, not just because I made a mistake and I paid the price for that, but because those kerbs have been put in place.

‘‘It’s one of the things we will need to talk about with Charlie this evening because we’ve discussed many times in drivers’ meetings that a penalty for making a mistake should be a loss of time. It shouldn’t be damaging your chassis.

‘‘If you hit a barrier then fair enough because that’s the limit of the circuit, but to have your car smashed on a kerb like that is just stupid, so we will be discussing it.’’

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis was not too impressed either and he said: ‘‘It’s a very aggressive kerb which means it’s going to do damage if anyone hits it, and unfortunately it did exactly that to David’s car.

‘‘The frustrating thing is that normally any changes to the circuit from last year are listed in documentation given to us before we start practice. But this wasn’t noted, otherwise we would have looked at it.

‘‘I’m told it’s going to be changed tomorrow - but it’s still cost David his day.’’

Coulthard, however, feels ‘‘chilled’’ about his prospects for this weekend, one in which Ferrari ace Schumacher has started in dominant fashion as he closes in on his fourth world title.

The 32-year-old German was fastest in both sessions, ultimately clocking a time of one minute 16.651 seconds, closely followed by team-mate Rubens Barrichello, with last year’s winner, McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen, third quickest.

Coulthard, in fact, was in a reflective mood as he even contemplated the prospect of having been crowned world champion by now if he had made the best of his machinery in recent years.

‘‘I think I’ve definitely improved each year I’ve been in Formula One and I’m in a better position to make use of the machinery which has been given to me,’’ added Coulthard.

‘‘Obviously it doesn’t look good today, but it has crossed my mind that had I been able to perform at this level at the time when the car was the class of the field then I could be sitting here with wc (world champion) after my name.

‘‘At the end of the day, I enjoy the challenge of doing what I’m doing, and winning is the ultimate goal. The journey to get to that goal is what gives you the enjoyment.

‘‘When I hear Jean (Alesi) talking about his pure enjoyment of driving after all these years, then I think I will be in that same category when I look back. There’s just no feeling like being in a race car.

‘‘So I’m not thinking about whether this is a crucial weekend. It’s the same at the beginning of the year when people were asking about championships and all the rest of it.

‘‘It’s not won or lost at one race. It’s an accumulation of races that give you a championship or lose you a championship. The fact is at this point, they (Ferrari) as a team have done better than we have as a team myself included in that team element.

‘‘There’s no magic. You just have to get on and do your job and if we lose the chance to keep the championship alive this weekend it won’t just be because of this weekend.’’

Eddie Irvine was fifth quickest in his Jaguar, and despite Benettons now blessed with powersteering, Jenson Button was down in 17th in comparison to team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella who was seventh.