Coulthard thinks more work needed

David Coulthard secured his first race finish of the 2002 season yesterday when he bought his McLaren home third in the Brazilian Grand Prix. The Scot failed to finish in Australia and Malaysia, both times engine failure ruining his chances to get valuable championship points on the board. Now he has opened his account but believes McLaren still have work to do to remain in the fight with Ferrari and Williams.

"We obviously haven't taken as big a step forward as the other cars during the winter," he said. "We know this car is a quicker car than last year's when we have done the back-to-back tests, but we just haven't taken a big enough step, it's quite clear. We just need to work on each area of the car a little bit more."

Rather than battling with the other top teams, McLaren spent most of the Interlagos race scrapping with Renault until Jarno Trulli retired and Coulthard's team mate Kimi Raikkonen spun off. The gruelling conditions in Brazil took their toll on Coulthard; despite being pleased with his podium finish he said he felt terrible at the end of the race: "When I made my way to the podium I suddenly realised I felt pretty terrible," he commented. "The national anthem seemed to go on forever and I was hoping they could speed it up."