As the dust settles on Adelaide as the host of the Supercars grand final, the city’s pure love for motorsports rings true.
The original party scenes in the tiny South Australian city made every Formula 1 driver and team give a fond goodbye in 1995 to one of the grid’s favourite tracks.
Squished into the back of his motorhome, David Coulthard exclusively spoke to Wide World of Sports on what it is about the unique energy in Adelaide that makes everyone want the F1 to roll back into town.
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“I think that Adelaide was doing things way, way, way before other motorsports events were doing them,” he said.
“And we have to recognise, and with the greatest respect to Silverstone, a track that I’m involved with as the president of the BRDC (British Racing Drivers Club), Adelaide had music festivals during grand prix weekend, fan zones and things like that, way before.
Gerhard Berger during practice at the Adelaide F1. Â Getty
“Like, we’re talking 30 years ago when I was here.
“And that’s really become a bigger thing under Liberty (Media) in the last, well, less than decade, whereas now every grand prix track is expected to have a major act.
“They had Tina Turner here back in the day, they had INXS. INXS were huge.
“So you’ve got all credit to the forefathers of those that were bound up, that had the vision to bring motorsport to Adelaide.
“They were gutted when they lost it to Melbourne, and it’s going to be there for the next decade or however much.”
After hosting the Australian Grand Prix between 1985 and 1995, Adelaide lost their bid to their neighbouring Victorian state, where it will now be hosted in Albert Park until 2037.
Albert Park is the host of the Australian Grand Prix until 2037. Â Eddie Jim
“But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and they shouldn’t give up on it here because Melbourne’s a great city, but Adelaide’s a great city as well.”
Coulthard is a beaming personality and a beloved addition to the final Supercars weekend.
Taking the RB7 for a spin during demonstrations, the Oracle Red Bull Garage has a continuous line outside with a fanbase of adoring fans looking to catch a glimpse of the V8 beauties and the drivers inside them.
Coulthard is a busy man on the weekend, where nearly 285,700 fans streamed through the gates.
In the span of 10 minutes, he jumped out of the RB7, debriefed with his team and watched the subsequent Super2 qualifying with Scott Speed (who is cheering on fellow American Jesse Love).
David Coulthard in the RB7 took to the streets of Adelaide. Â DANIEL KALISZ / RACE PROJECT
This all while he met a copious amount of fans still in his overalls, taking photos with young kids in front of the Red Bull car and making older fans’ day by signing vintage photos of his time in Adelaide during the F1 heydays.
The streets of Adelaide are notoriously unforgiving, a fact Coulthard knows well.
The twisting street circuit was an integral part of his Formula 1 career. During his first year in the sport, he was involved in a pit wall crash that dramatically ended his race.
“Yeah, it was my first proper year in Formula 1, so I was kind of young, dumb and full of, you know, potential,” he laughed as he tried to find the best words to describe his younger self.
“I won my 21st grand prix, and I remember at the time the media saying, ‘At last’ because I’d been close, but I’d been making mistakes.
“I was just a young guy from a village that had been thrust into F1 through the death of Ayrton Senna.
David Coulthard has history around the Adelaide streets. Â LAT Images
“I just wasn’t really ready for it. I had the speed and all that sort of good stuff, but I just didn’t have the maturity. That came over the following years.”
When asked about the “young and dumb” description that Coulthard gave himself, he pointed to the much younger drivers on the grid nowadays and the bounds of experience they have received.
“Broc [Feeney] is 23, so that’s amazing.”
“It’s amazing how young he is and such a great talent.”
The Scotsman was joined by Broc Feeney, one of Supercars’ rising stars at 23, on the Adelaide track for a hot lap during the weekend.
“But if you’re good enough, you’re old enough, and I think that’s the thing with sport,” he explained.
“Go back in tennis, there was a guy called Boris Becker who won Wimbledon at 17.
“I’m sure there’re other examples of female tennis players who have had big results in their teens.
As a rookie, Oscar Piastri had the weight of Australia on his shoulders. Â NurPhoto via Getty Images
“We have no problem [with] a teenager being given a penalty and the hopes of a nation resting with them.
“So talent is talent, and what I think the only thing that young talent misses is life experience. They’ve got a decade or more of racing experience, because they’ve all started in karting or they’ve started on dirt tracks.
“If you do anything for a decade, surely (you’d) be really good at (anything).”
Coulthard and his McLaren teammate Mika Hakkinen will embark on a two-week-long tour around Australia next year, speaking to fans about the unheard stories of being an F1 driver in the 1990s and early noughties.
David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinnen were teammates in McLaren. Â Getty
“We’ve become friends over the years, and we’ve done a week in the UK already, and we’ve got Formula 1 footage available to us which we play into the crowd,” he said.
“Some people won’t know that Mika had a big crash here in 1995 and spent several weeks in a hospital because they’re new fans, but they’ll have heard of him as a world champion.
“So we’ll play in that, and then he’ll explain what that emotion was. So there’s light and shade in the conversation.
“You know, I was involved in a plane crash where the pilots were killed going to a grand prix.
“Not to make it all sound like crashes, but what I’m saying is, we’re covering our journey, not only as teammates, but our journey in Formula 1.”
Currently, in this age of F1, nothing is new to sports fans anymore.
They can access driver-specific onboards and hear radio messages between drivers and their race engineers.
They can even go behind the scenes of their favourite team through multiple social channels or during a grand prix weekend.
So fans are eager to hear stories of a time when F1 had an elite air of mystery.
Every driver’s F1 experience is being filmed constantly for social channels. Â Getty
“And then we obviously bring it to (Hakkinen’s) successes at world championships, my battles with (Michael) Schumacher and all that sort of stuff.”
“And then our experience of being teammates for seven years and how that compares to the two McLaren drivers right now and their battle.
“A lot of these young drivers think they’re doing it for the first time, but we’ve done it,” he laughed.
“Before us, [Alain] Prost and Senna were doing it.
“All these inter-team battles. I remember when I was a driver saying, ‘Oh, I try not to listen to the critics and the media.’
“Now these guys are saying the same thing. But we are an ecosystem that builds off each other. We are giving an insight into how it was and how we think it is.
“History repeats itself.”