Sunday March 31st, 2002

Scot David Coulthard was pleased after finally scoring his first points of the 20002 season at Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver suffered mechanical problems at both the Australian and Malaysian Grands Prix, and in today's race had to battle hard with Renault drivers Jarno Trulli and Jenson Button to finish on the podium behind Michael and Ralf Schumacher.

Coulthard, winner of the race last year, was glad to be back in the points, and was looking forward to the first European race of the season in San Marino.

"It's good to be back on the podium that is for sure," said Coulthard. "I had a really hard race as both the Renaults managed to get past me at the start and I was stuck behind them for 43 laps.

"Once I was clear, I was able to go at the optimum speed but by then we had lost too much time. It's great to be in the points and I'm now looking forward to the start of the European season."

Teammate Kimi Raikkonen retired from the race with yet another mechanical problem in his Mercedes-powered McLaren, the young driver being robbed of what looked set to be a fourth place finish.

"It's a pity that I didn't finish the race," said the Finn. "Like David, I was stuck behind both Renaults for the majority of the Grand Prix but eventually managed to outbrake Jenson Button at the first corner on lap 40, which I held until my car suffered a wheel hub failure with three laps to go which cost me fourth place."

From being Ferrari's main rivals for the past three seasons, McLaren have been overtaken by Williams while being hard pushed to fend off Renault.

Michael Schumacher said in Brazil that he considered Williams to be Ferrari's biggest rivals and expected them to be fighting each other all the way. But of course he would not write off McLaren.

"You never should discount any kind of top team and McLaren certainly is a top team," he said on Sunday, before adding: "We will certainly not be surprised if they are going to be back in business very soon."

The inference, however, was clearly that they are not that at present and Coulthard recognised there was a big gap between his team and this season's race winners.

"I haven't even seen what the gap was to Michael and Ralf but I think it was a massive gap so I think we would have struggled to get close to them," he said. "We obviously haven't taken as big a step forward as the other cars during the winter.

"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."

Published at 21:11:55 GMT