MAY 27, 2001
Bernoldi slammed over race tactics
BRAZILIAN Enrique Bernoldi claimed that his future in Formula One was threatened after the Monaco Grand Prix, by McLaren bosses Ron Dennis and Norbert Haug.
Bernoldi held up David Coulthard during the race after the McLaren driver had started from the back of the grid following a start-line stall.
The young Arrows driver said that Dennis and Haug threatened to cut short his Formula One career because of his race tactics.
Bernoldi said: "I was walking in the pit lane and Ron (Dennis) and Norbert (Haug) came up to me in a very aggressive way. They told me that if I didn't change, my career would be ended.
"They said if you continue to carry on driving like this you will not be in Formula One very long. I was very scared it was quite aggressive."
Dennis, however, denied making any threats and said: "That's rubbish. I have no control over his career."
Coulthard eventually recovered to finish fifth but questioned Bernoldi's driving tactics after being held up for much of the race.
"He was defending 17th place and I was in the faster car, but he let his team-mate through and other people -- and then he just cut straight across me," Coulthard said.
"He kept on turning in very dangerously. I knew I had to stay calm, but it was difficult. A few years ago, I would have pushed him off into the harbor so hard he might never have come back up.
"The sporting thing for him to do would have been to ease over and let me by, like he did for several other cars. I think he just thought he was wallowing in some kind of glory in holding me up like that."
And Coulthard hit out at the motives of Arrows for allowing their driver to use such tactics.
He added: "If that team is so desperate for television exposure that it has to resort to these kind of strategies then you have got to question the management of the team as a whole."