David Coulthard will most likely despise members of the media who draw parallels between his battles with Mika Hakkinen and the way another championship season is crumbling in the company of yet another Flying Finn. As Shirley Bassey sang, its another case of history repeating itself and if Coulthard does not break the cycle he will never reach the top step of the podium as world champion.
While Coulthard's race-craft and general racing ability are not in question, his complete inability to grasp one-shot qualifying ruined his chances of F1 glory by the middle of 2003. His hot-shoe team-mate has disengaged his brain during Friday and Saturday and driven on instinct alone, to great effect. And now with Ferrari still strong, the MP4-18 the F1 equivalent of a unicorn, and Williams in resurgence, DC may be about to get the dreaded 'tail-gunner' call very soon. Just like in the days of Hakkinen, Coulthard could be about to resign himself to several seasons of psychological capitulation.
Many observers (this one included) believe that Coulthard lost the psychological battle with Hakkinen once he became embroiled in the "whoever gets to the first corner first, wins" debacle of 1998. From then on the Scot was always playing catch-up despite being as quick, and quicker on occasion, than Hakkinen prior to 1998. Playing tail-gunner for the Finn until the 2001 season when Mika lost interest gave DC absolutely no chance of defeating his double champion team-mate one on one, on equal terms.
Coulthard's problem stems from the way he values the team-ethic and the way he has always believed that it is better to be a team-player than Mr Nasty if that means helping his team to victory. The same is about to happen again as McLaren try to fend off multiple championship attacks from M. Schumacher, R. Schumacher, and Montoya. DC has a decision to make and one that is likely to shape the next 2-3 years, a time when he arguably has his last chance to be a world champion. Basically, when Ron Dennis comes calling DC needs to break with the habit of a lifetime and tell him to stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
Why? Simply put, if DC does not do this he runs the risk of lining up in 2004 sporting the number 2 (again), alongside a cold, calculating Finn (again), who happens to be world champion (again), and is the firmly ensconced as the future of the sport and the darling of the McLaren team (again). The alternative? Raikkonen is young and inexperienced so how would he react to narrowly losing the title? Who knows, it might just break him? DC has long claimed there is no more Mr Nice but has it really shone through? Is he as nasty as Schumacher, Prost and Senna were when they became world champions? Probably not. Would other rivals like the Schumachers and Montoya re-assess their view of DC in light of such a wicked decision? Maybe. In the main though, DC must gain more than he loses from not agreeing to help.
DC would likely retort something along the lines of: "Why jeopardise my position in a top team for the sake of some psychological points scoring and in any case I can handle being next to the world champ because I believe I am good enough to be champ?" But on the basis of recent history he cannot cope and in any case, what is the point of being in the best team if you are viewed by management as driver 2 (whether they admit it or not)?
It is a terrible cliché but for DC, it is a case of history repeating itself and only he has the opportunity to re-write the script.
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