August 15, 2004

West McLaren Mercedes driver David Coulthard came home in ninth position in the Hungarian Grand Prix at Budapest. His team-mate Kimi Räikkönen retired after 14 of the 70 laps due to an electronic failure of the fuel injection system. Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) was the winner of the race and the Italian team clinched the Constructors' World Championship with five races still to go.

MP4-19B 03: David
MP4-19B 01: Kimi

The start: Kimi started from tenth position and made up three places on the opening lap to seventh. David, 12th on the grid, came round in 11th position at the end of the first lap.

The race: Kimi came in for his first refuelling stop (8.9sec) on his 12th lap although even before that he was experiencing a loss of performance due to the electronic problem with the fuel injection. He went out of the pits and resumed the race for one more lap, but came in again next time around to retire from the race.

David came in for his first scheduled refuelling stop on his 11th lap (7.5sec) and resumed in 17th position. On the 32nd lap he came in again from ninth position (8.0sec) and went back into the race in 10th place. On lap 53 he made his third stop from eighth place (7.9sec) and resumed in ninth and finished the race in the same position.

David Coulthard: "We have been suffering from making the wrong decision with regards to tyres and continued to do so today as the ambient temperature remained relatively low. There was not a lot I could do in the race as we started so far back, and it's almost impossible to overtake on this track. I think we will just forget about this weekend and look forward to the Belgian Grand Prix in two weeks time."

Kimi Räikkönen: "I gained a few positions on the first lap to be seventh and was getting into the race. I'm not sure what the problem was, but the engine kept cutting out for a few laps, so there was nothing for me to do but retire. It's a shame as we could have been in the points, but I look forward to Spa where I think we will be more competitive."

Ron Dennis, Team Principal: "Kimi made a good start and had a strong opening lap which saw him moving up to seventh. Unfortunately he suffered an injector drive powerbox failure causing the engine to cut out, which we were unable to rectify and consequently we took the decision to retire him. David's race was hampered by a poor grid position, which was a result of the team making the wrong decision with regards to race tyres. However his pace was comparable to the other Michelin runners. We now look forward to Spa, which should play to the strengths of MP4-19B."

Norbert Haug, Vice-President Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: "A very bad weekend with a wrong tyre choice and an electrical failure of the injection system on Kimi's car. Our team will now work hard in order to achieve a better result at the Belgian Grand Prix and demonstrate the performance we showed in the past three races."