JUNE 24, 2001

Coulthard ready to play patient game

DAVID COULTHARD is ready to play a patient game in his bid to catch and overtake championship leader Michael Schumacher to win his first title.

McLaren driver Coulthard is 18 points behind Ferrari's Schumacher as the pair go into Sunday's European Grand Prix both aiming for a win to strengthen their own causes.

Coulthard believes the reliability of his McLaren will be the key to him making up the deficit as he bids to win races and see Schumacher fail to score points.

"It's obviously going to take a couple of wins with him not finishing to turn that around quickly," said Coulthard. "It's not something that's particularly good and it's not something that we're happy with because we know that we've given away points by technical errors rather than by not being quick enough and that's always frustrating.

"It's something that we'll either be able to overcome or it'll still be the talking point at the end of the season if we don't manage to achieve it.

"But there's been bigger points differences that drivers have been able to come back from, so I'm not going to get worried about it until it gets to a point where I can't pull it back."