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As he relaxed in his Melbourne hotel yesterday, [David Coulthard] played down talk that his performance guarantees he will be the main rival to Ferrari's Michael Schumacher this season: "I think some people need to get a grasp of reality," said the Scot. "Yes I won the Australian Grand Prix for the second time, and yes, I lead the championship heading to the second round in Malaysia, but we've still got 15 grands prix left this year and any talk about the championship is nonsense.
Twenty-four hours after he took the chequered flag in Australia to win the opening grand prix of the year, David Coulthard was in reflective mood as he came to terms with the fact that he heads to Malaysia for the next round leading the race for the World Championship.
As he relaxed in his Melbourne hotel yesterday, Coulthard played down talk that his performance guarantees he will be the main rival to Ferrari's Michael Schumacher this season: "I think some people need to get a grasp of reality," said the Scot. "Yes I won the Australian Grand Prix for the second time, and yes, I lead the championship heading to the second round in Malaysia, but we've still got 15 grands prix left this year and any talk about the championship is nonsense.
"With the new point-scoring system, I'm only two points ahead of Juan [Pablo Montoya], four ahead of Kimi [Raikonnen] and five ahead of Michael.
"Of course I'm extremely pleased to have started the season with a victory, but people who are writing off Ferrari are making a big, big mistake. They are going to come out for the next race more fired up than they have been for years and if you thought Sunday was action-packed, I have a feeling Malaysia will be even better.
"I know that I was in a position to take full advantage of the problems guys like Michael, Juan, Kimi and Rubens [Barrichello] had during the race, but the point is I was there when it mattered: leading at the end of the race when they weren't."
Coulthard's victory was not as dominant as his last win in Monaco last May - he only took the lead when Montoya spun out - but the win has breathed new life into Formula One at a time when it was in desperate need of resuscitation after the political and team-order shenanigans of last year.
"It had really been pretty uninspiring until I took the lead," admitted Coulthard. "All I had been doing was going as fast as I could, staying out of trouble and hoping that things might happen ahead of me. As it turned out, that's exactly what happened "There are times when you just have to grind out results and that's what I did. It was a bit like the tortoise and the hare but in the end, I really don't care how the wins come, as long as they do."
(Copyright 2003 SMG Newspapers Ltd.)