Three frontrunners emerge when Autosport asks two-time CART Indycar champion Gil de Ferran for his favorite teammate, before the 2003 Indianapolis 500 winner selects a driver he only spent one season racing with in 1990 .
Their careers may have gone in different directions, but de Ferran and David Coulthard have been good friends since racing together at Paul Stewart Racing in Formula Vauxhall Lotus, and even vacationing together last year.
De Ferran had arrived at PSR after an impressive 1989 season in Formula Ford with the Fulmar Reynard works team, while the less experienced Coulthard had won the P&O Ferries FF1600 Junior title in his first motor racing season and won the first McLaren Autosport BRDC award.
Aged 22 (De Ferran) and 19 (Coulthard) respectively, the couple got along wonderfully and often shared accommodation during races. De Ferran finished the 1990 campaign second in the British Championship, won by Vincenzo Sospiri for David Sears Motorsport (Coulthard finished fourth) and third in the Opel Lotus Euroseries with the same cars – although unlike Coulthard, fifth (injured to the leg-crash at Spa) he did not win a race.
“I had a tremendous amount of respect for him, we loved each other as people and to this day we have a very close and friendly relationship,” de Ferran said of Coulthard, who racked up 246 Grand Prix starts in 15 years of Formula. 1 career that yielded 13 wins. “It’s no surprise to me that David has realized what he has, a huge amount.
“It goes beyond what happened on the circuit in 1990. It’s because to this day we are great friends and that must mean something.”
However, things did not go off to a brilliant start. As Coulthard recounts in his autobiography, at the first continental round of the Opel Lotus Euroseries at Zolder – which did not count for points – “I hit him from behind, cut his tires and resulting puncture took him out of the race. During this time my car was relatively undamaged and I finished on the podium. I remember him hanging from the pit wall giving me the wanker sign and V’s, he was so angry. We had to share a car all the way back to Milton Keynes, and he didn’t say a single word to me the whole way!
Coulthard and de Ferran almost didn’t get along as teammates, but their relationship later reconciled
Picture by: Motorsport Images
De Ferran confirms: “At the end of the first lap I was ahead of him, entering the chicane he was all locked up and hit me on the left rear tire and we had a puncture and that was the end of it. , bent the suspension I think too. Man, I was angry! But that anger didn’t last very long.
But De Ferran couldn’t blame Coulthard because “it could have been on the other foot, it could just as well have been me doing the same thing.” Coulthard was named godfather to De Ferran’s daughter, Anna, and was even present for the penultimate race of De Ferran’s single-seater career at Fontana in 2003.
It brought down the curtain on four successful years with Team Penske – yielding the 2000 and 2001 CART Indycar titles – alongside Helio Castroneves, who was certainly no pushover. He won two of his four Indy 500 victories in the same kit as de Ferran in 2001 and 2002.
“Simon [Pagenaud], its success speaks for itself. It was a really interesting experience sharing a car with him and honestly learning some things from him and working with each other.” Gil de Ferran
“I was at the end of my career and he was at the start of his career,” de Ferran said of his fellow Brazilian, eight years his junior. “I’ve always had a good relationship – in fact, I don’t remember having a bad relationship with my teammates.”
After a stint in F1 as sporting director at Honda, De Ferran enjoyed a two-year racing return with his own De Ferran Motorsports team in the 2008 American Le Mans Series. Sharing with another future Indy winner 500 to Simon Pagenaud, he was a winner that year in the LMP2 division with Acura and stepped up with the brand in LMP1 the following season, signing his return with a win at Laguna Seca using a white livery to honor his first boss of IndyCar team, Jim Hall.
“I’m glad I had the experience of sharing a car in sports cars – I really enjoyed that,” he says. “Simon, his success speaks for itself – he has gained a lot since then. It was a really interesting experience sharing a car with him and honestly learning some things from him and working with each other.
“It was very interesting to exchange points of view on the car, on the driving, our techniques in certain corners, etc.”
De Ferran also spoke highly of Pagenaud as a teammate
Photo by: Michael L. Levitt/Motorsport Images
Three frontrunners emerge when Autosport asks two-time CART Indycar champion Gil de Ferran for his favorite teammate, before the 2003 Indianapolis 500 winner selects a driver he only spent one season racing with in 1990 .
Their careers may have gone in different directions, but de Ferran and David Coulthard have been good friends since racing together at Paul Stewart Racing in Formula Vauxhall Lotus, and even vacationing together last year.
De Ferran had arrived at PSR after an impressive 1989 season in Formula Ford with the Fulmar Reynard works team, while the less experienced Coulthard had won the P&O Ferries FF1600 Junior title in his first motor racing season and won the first McLaren Autosport BRDC award.
Aged 22 (De Ferran) and 19 (Coulthard) respectively, the couple got along wonderfully and often shared accommodation during races. De Ferran finished the 1990 campaign second in the British Championship, won by Vincenzo Sospiri for David Sears Motorsport (Coulthard finished fourth) and third in the Opel Lotus Euroseries with the same cars – although unlike Coulthard, fifth (injured to the leg-crash at Spa) he did not win a race.
“I had a tremendous amount of respect for him, we loved each other as people and to this day we have a very close and friendly relationship,” de Ferran said of Coulthard, who racked up 246 Grand Prix starts in 15 years of Formula. 1 career that yielded 13 wins. “It’s no surprise to me that David has realized what he has, a huge amount.
“It goes beyond what happened on the circuit in 1990. It’s because to this day we are great friends and that must mean something.”
However, things did not go off to a brilliant start. As Coulthard recounts in his autobiography, at the first continental round of the Opel Lotus Euroseries at Zolder – which did not count for points – “I hit him from behind, cut his tires and resulting puncture took him out of the race. During this time my car was relatively undamaged and I finished on the podium. I remember him hanging from the pit wall giving me the wanker sign and V’s, he was so angry. We had to share a car all the way back to Milton Keynes, and he didn’t say a single word to me the whole way!
Coulthard and de Ferran almost didn’t get along as teammates, but their relationship later reconciled
Picture by: Motorsport Images
De Ferran confirms: “At the end of the first lap I was ahead of him, entering the chicane he was all locked up and hit me on the left rear tire and we had a puncture and that was the end of it. , bent the suspension I think too. Man, I was angry! But that anger didn’t last very long.
But De Ferran couldn’t blame Coulthard because “it could have been on the other foot, it could just as well have been me doing the same thing.” Coulthard was named godfather to De Ferran’s daughter, Anna, and was even present for the penultimate race of De Ferran’s single-seater career at Fontana in 2003.
It brought down the curtain on four successful years with Team Penske – yielding the 2000 and 2001 CART Indycar titles – alongside Helio Castroneves, who was certainly no pushover. He won two of his four Indy 500 victories in the same kit as de Ferran in 2001 and 2002.
“Simon [Pagenaud], its success speaks for itself. It was a really interesting experience sharing a car with him and honestly learning some things from him and working with each other.” Gil de Ferran
“I was at the end of my career and he was at the start of his career,” de Ferran said of his fellow Brazilian, eight years his junior. “I’ve always had a good relationship – in fact, I don’t remember having a bad relationship with my teammates.”
After a stint in F1 as sporting director at Honda, De Ferran enjoyed a two-year racing return with his own De Ferran Motorsports team in the 2008 American Le Mans Series. Sharing with another future Indy winner 500 to Simon Pagenaud, he was a winner that year in the LMP2 division with Acura and stepped up with the brand in LMP1 the following season, signing his return with a win at Laguna Seca using a white livery to honor his first boss of IndyCar team, Jim Hall.
“I’m glad I had the experience of sharing a car in sports cars – I really enjoyed that,” he says. “Simon, his success speaks for itself – he has gained a lot since then. It was a really interesting experience sharing a car with him and honestly learning some things from him and working with each other.
“It was very interesting to exchange points of view on the car, on the driving, our techniques in certain corners, etc.”
De Ferran also spoke highly of Pagenaud as a teammate
Photo by: Michael L. Levitt/Motorsport Images