The legendary Formula One pundit gives us the inside track on the 2025 grid, his predictions for the future and why he has no interest in ever racing cars again…
A 13-time Grand Prix winner and 2001 World Drivers Championship runner up, David Coulthard is a racing legend in his own right – and one of the sport’s most in-demand pundits. “I did OK but thank you very much,” he says humbly after we remind him of his many achievements on the grid racing for McLaren, Williams and Red Bull. Post-racing, Coulthard has become an international motorsport statesman of sorts, which brings us to this interview.
In town for the Qatar Grand Prix, we sit down with the iconic Scot aboard the Celestyal Journey cruise ship in Doha’s port. Celestyal has just launched an annual F1-themed cruise around the Middle East with a stop at the Abu Dhabi race and hired David to speak in front of travel operators and greet Sheiks. It’s the kind of gig Coulthard does a lot and combines his knack for F1 commentary with his winning ability to charm the public.
Hey, David, welcome aboard. What inspired you to take this gig?
I am going to be doing my first cruise, and my parents have cruised for 25-30 years, so to have the opportunity to come on and look around the ship is great.
You raced in the first Grand Prix in the Middle East 20 years ago and now there’s four races in the region. How important is it for the sport to look at new markets?
We are a true World Championship and to truly reflect that World Championship we should be in all continents. The latest target has been Africa, and Lewis has been at the forefront of that – I’ve done a number of events in Africa. There’s talk of one in Rwanda or returning to South Africa in the future. Then we’d cover the majority of the world and give everyone an opportunity to experience Formula One.
A huge part of being an F1 driver today is being public facing and the face of all these brands. Is there too much of it now?
Nothing comes for nothing. If you want to be a great runner, you can’t just think about it. You’ve got to put in the hard yards. You’ve got to go through the non-glamorous element of it to then have your moment in the competition. Formula One’s an expensive sport. You need investment, partners, sponsors… you need a fan base to be a professional. Otherwise, they’ve all been doing this since we’re eight, being paid nothing. What makes you a professional athlete is that you’re good enough people are prepared to pay to watch you. So, I don’t think it’s too much. It’s absolutely been part and parcel. I was doing it 30 years ago, the sport didn’t have the audience it has to date, but we were still going meeting partners and sponsors and going to their headquarters and doing fan engagements. And the truth is, the drivers are just fans who got one of the best seats in the house.
So, it comes with job?
You know, I had my moment in the sunshine driving my car for 15 years, but why am I still around? One, because of business opportunities, but mostly I really enjoy being at a racetrack. My son’s going to race GB F4 next year and I’ve been at a lot of tracks. I’m just standing there. I don’t have any desire to want to do it because I’ve had my time. I just feel good being there. I’m a fan. Yes, they’re fans. Yes, sometimes you can get an invasion of privacy and all those sort of things that can happen when people become more obsessive about an individual. But there’s enough planning and structure and management to make sure that doesn’t impact them.
Is there too much emphasis on the top four teams that are consistently winning and how important is it to have smaller teams like Sauber and Haas in F1?
I think without somebody being last there is no top and tail of any competition. It doesn’t matter if it’s a school event or whether it’s in a professional sports event, there has to be someone that’s done a better job on that day in history or that year in history, and someone that’s aspiring to be there. Like the old expression, Rome wasn’t built in a day – it rings true in any sports team where past performance is no guarantee of future success. Just because you may have had success in the past doesn’t mean you’ll have it necessarily in the future. You’ve got to have sustained investment. As a business, you have to attract the right people, give them the belief that they can grow in that role and they can have the tools to develop their vision to make it successful. I’m not saying that Sauber won’t be a winning team in the future, they’ve won before when they were owned by BMW, but they’ve never sustained a successful championship campaign.
Why is that?
I think Peter Sauber was a garage-ista, or whatever they call it, you know, he was an owner-operator, and he ran it with passion but on a smaller scale. And there’s a point where you need to step out of that, and that’s where hopefully Audi and the investment from the Qatari fund will make them think like McLaren. McLaren weren’t thinking like winners at the beginning of 2024, and then when they got the car that was great, and they’re winning, they’re going, ‘Oh, you know we can win a championship’. But because you’re so head down, slogging away to try and get competitive, sometimes when you get there, you’re not prepared. Now they are and next year they’ll be stronger. The Audi project is a five-year-plus project to success. If I look at when I joined Red Bull, that was nowhere. And in year five, I think they won a Grand Prix and then year six, seven they get into World Championships and things like that. So, it takes time, and that means growing with the right people, not just going here with 1,000 people. Yeah, better to have 600 quality people than 1,000 mediocre people.
What was your take on Daniel Ricciardo leaving Formula One so suddenly after Singapore?
McLaren paid Daniel to not race. AlphaTauri have dropped him. What do they know that we don’t? Well, they’ve got all the data and I like Daniel, he’s a great guy, but the sport has kept going without him there. Ayrton Senna was the greatest driver of that generation when I started but the sport continued to grow and develop beyond Ayrton and it’s always onto the next bright thing.
This year it feels like there’s a real shift, with new drivers like Jack Doohan at Alpine, Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes, Gabriel Bortoleto at Sauber and Oliver Bearman at Haas. Is this going to shake up the competition?
Yeah, it’s always a shame when perfectly nice people are no longer involved. But in elite sports if Ronaldo is your favorite football player, the moment he stops scoring goals you’ve got no problem with him being put on the bench, or him leaving the club. You want the best people. So yes, you respect them and admire them and like them, but you totally understand in sport, it’s about the best people that are available at that time. There is that natural evolution where now Jack gets his chance and Bortoleto gets his chance, and it’s for them to show us. Some drivers get it, like Colapinto, where did he come from? Yeah, bit wild, but quick. And others arrive and they just do a good job. Good isn’t enough. At elite sport level they’re looking for brilliant.
Celestyal journey F1 cruise
Celestyal Journey will offer a Formula One cruise on December 6, 2025. Sailing from Abu Dhabi to Doha, the seven-night trip includes the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as well as calls to Dubai, Sir Bani Yas Island and Bahrain. Priced from A$899 per person twin share for the cruise, with F1 grandstand packages starting from A$1,132 for South Grandstand access.
For more information or to book visit celestyal.com
By REILLY SULLIVAN
For the full article grab the May 2025 issue of MAXIM Australia from newsagents and convenience locations. Subscribe here.
