{"id":44323,"date":"2025-08-05T03:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T03:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/44323\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T03:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T03:04:07","slug":"david-coulthard-explains-why-lewis-hamilton-and-michael-schumacher-always-had-more-potential-than-him-in-f1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/44323\/","title":{"rendered":"David Coulthard explains why Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher always had more ‘potential’ than him in F1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton share the record for the most world championships at seven, but what is it that makes them such great drivers compared to the rest? <\/p>\n

Having raced against both of them in the early and latter stages of his career, David Coulthard<\/a> knows what it is like to go wheel to wheel with Schumacher<\/a> and Hamilton<\/a> on the same piece of tarmac. <\/p>\n

Coulthard infamously collided with Schumacher<\/a> at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, prompting the angry Ferrari driver to march down to his McLaren pit box and nearly start a fight. <\/p>\n

Having driven for McLaren at the same time Mika Hakkinen won two world titles in 1998 and 1999, Coulthard explained one reason why drivers such as his teammate, Schumacher and Hamilton managed to win championships when speaking on the High Performance podcast. <\/p>\n

\"AUTO-F1-SCHUMI\/TROPHY\"Photo by TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA\/AFP via Getty ImagesDavid Coulthard thinks Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher had \u2018spare capacity\u2019<\/p>\n

Coulthard won 13 races in his F1 career, with the Scot\u2019s last being in 2003 for McLaren. He made the switch to Red Bull in their early years, but elected to retire in 2008 before going into TV punditry. <\/p>\n

Discussing what he felt great drivers have that he didn\u2019t when he was in F1, Coulthard explains how both Schumacher and Hamilton share the same characteristic that makes them great.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of having used that 15 years as a driver and looked at the data against some of the great drivers, I think they just exploit the potential of the machinery and the tires in a more consistent way than someone like myself,\u201d said Coulthard. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the point at which you overload and go, that\u2019s the limit. They just have that little bit of room to go: \u2018Is it the limit?\u2019 \u2013 It doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t make mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019ve seen Michael crash and we\u2019ve seen Lewis crash. Of course, they get it wrong occasionally. But I think their spare capacity to exploit potential opportunity is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about F1 legend Michael Schumacher from net worth to career stats<\/a><\/p>\n

David Coulthard behind Stirling Moss for one F1 record<\/p>\n

Coulthard admitted that he \u2018dipped in and out\u2019 of being a world-class driver, which ultimately prevented him from matching the consistency of Schumacher. <\/p>\n

Although he still managed to win races, he would ultimately never add his name to the list of champions despite having the car that was capable. <\/p>\n

DRIVERYEARSWINSStirling Moss1951-196116David Coulthard1994-200813Carlos Reutemann1972-198212Felipe Massa2002, 2004-201711Rubens Barrichello1993-201111Ronnie Peterson1970-197810Gerhard Berger1984-199710Valtteri Bottas2013-202410Most Formula 1 wins without a drivers\u2019 championship<\/p>\n

The Scot is second on the all-time list of drivers who won races but never went on to win a title, with him being three wins behind Stirling Moss. <\/p>\n

Coulthard finished third in the Drivers\u2019 Championship on four occasions, but in 2001 he came closest having finished second behind Schumacher. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton share the record for the most world championships at seven, but what is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,874,823,844,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-44323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-david-coulthard","11":"tag-lewis-hamilton","12":"tag-michael-schumacher","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}