July 25, 2004

The Team McLareen Mercedes driver David Coulthard came home fourth in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. His team-mate Kimi Raikkonen retired at the start of the 14th lap while holding third place due to a failure of his car's rear wing. Kimi spun and hit the tyre barrier at turn one. Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) won the 66-lap race.

MP4-19B 02: David
MP4-19B 01: Kimi

The start: Kimi started third on the grid and completed the first lap in that position while David dropped from fourth to fifth place. On lap two Kimi overtook Fernando Alonso's Renault to take second place.

The race: Kimi initially followed Michael Schumacher with the gap varying between 2 and 3.3 sec. On lap ten the German driver came in for his first scheduled refuelling stop (9.8sec) while Kimi recorded the fastest lap of the race in 1min13.780sec and came in for his own refuelling stop from the lead next time round in 8.9sec. Whilst braking for the first corner of the 14th lap part of Kimi's rear wing detached. As a result the Finn spun and hit the tyre barrier.

On the first lap, whilst braking for the hairpin, David was hit on his right rear wheel by Rubens Barrichello's Ferrari which adversely affected the handling balance of his car. On lap 10 the Scot came in for his first refuelling stop (7.6sec) and resumed in ninth position. After the first round of stops, and Kimi's retirement, David held third position and retained it to his second stop on lap 28 (also 7.6sec). David then resumed the race in fourth position and then after his third stop on lap 47 (8.3sec) he resumed initially fifth and was back up to fourth one lap later. He made a firm challenge to Fernando Alonso's Renault which was just ahead of him on lap 56, but was not able to overtake. After 66 laps David came home in fourth place.

Kimi Räikkönen: "Obviously I'm extremely disappointed as things were looking good, and there was no doubt that we were in with a good chance of winning the race. I lost a place at the start to Alonso as he was extremely fast off the line, but I retook second place a few laps later and was able to keep up with Michael. I was quicker than him after my first pitstop and only needed a few more laps to be able to mount a real challenge for the lead. All of a sudden I just lost downforce and then I was a passenger. It's never nice not to finish a race, but at least we know that the pace is there. We are competitive and I'm looking forward to continue our challenge for victory in three weeks time in Hungary."

David Coulthard: "I had some balance problems throughout the race following the incident on the first lap when Barrichello hit me from behind at the first corner. In addition I picked up some debris from Kimi's accident which broke the deflector on my front wing. The team worked hard in the pitstops to try and dial out the understeer, but the problems continued. I was looking forward to mounting a real challenge for the podium today, but it just wasn't possible."

Ron Dennis, Team Principal: "Obviously we are disappointed particularly as we had a real chance of winning the race, but there is no doubt that we have taken a great step forward. Kimi retired with a structural failure on his rear wing - the reason for which we will investigate thoroughly. As it was a manufacturing mistake rather than a design problem there was no danger of the same thing happening to David. However his race was hampered when he picked up some debris which damaged his front wing and deflector quite early on. We are now all looking forward to the three week break and the Hungarian Grand Prix."

Norbert Haug, Vice-President Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: "Kimi was closing the gap to Michael Schumacher with a good chance of an attack when his rear wing broke. The reason for this we have to investigate. David's performance was hampered after Barrichello had hit him and slightly damaged the rear of his car. In addition to this David had a problem with his deflector, which was broken after he had picked up some debris. So he couldn't do better than fourth place in the end. It's a pity that we couldn't turn our speed into a podium finish today. "