Michael Schumacher's former adversary reveals shocking details of contract offered as the German's Ferrari teammate

Former F1 driver David Coulthard revealed the brutal contract details that Ferrari offered him in terms of joining the team as Michael Schumacher's teammate.

The 2000s were a Ferrari-dominated era in F1. Michael Schumacher won five consecutive world championships between 2000 and 2005 with the team. McLaren, meanwhile, had David Coulthard driving alongside Mika Hakkinen since the 1996 season. Kimi Raikkonen replaced Mika Hakkinen in 2002 after the latter retired at the end of the 2001 season. Coulthard, however, would go on to race with the team until 2004.

While Coulthard was still competing with McLaren in Ferrari's dominating era, he did approach the Italian outfit but was shocked by the terms they presented. Asked by Eddie Jordan on the Formula for Success podcast if Coulthard thought about changing teams, he revealed that he talked with the Scuderia. Jean Todt, Ferrari's then-team principal, had made it clear that he would join the team as a second driver. He said:

"I did. I met with Jean Todt in Paris in his apartment, to talk about the potential to drive for Ferrari."

He added:

"And my recollection of the contract offered was basically a number two contract, which, despite whatever anyone can now conclude about my career, at that time, I still felt that I wasn’t going to sign anything other than equal opportunity."

The terms were clear for David Coulthard; he would have to let Michael Schumacher through if he was ahead of him in a race. He added:

"And so essentially, if I was running fourth and Michael was fifth, then I had to move over and all the way right up to if I was leading. And I just couldn’t agree to signing to that."

Eventually, Coulthard did not make the move and remained with McLaren. He would later move to Red Bull and retire at the end of the 2008 season.

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Frederic Vasseur reveals improvements that Ferrari needs in 2024

After a brilliant start to the new era in the 2022 season, the Italian outfit's performance has grown to be questionable recently. Despite finishing second in the championship last season, their recent performance could only gain them third place behind Mercedes in the standings.

There were a couple of issues that the team faced throughout the season. Vasseur, their team principal, revealed a few in a conversation with the media. He said, via PlanetF1:

"I think the mistake would be to imagine that Red Bull, they have a magic bullet of five-tenths or that we made a step on something. The performance is coming from everywhere into the company, on the fact that we are able to produce parts quicker, on the fact we have better reliability."

He added that the team lost crucial points because of several reasons like the disqualification in the US GP. Further, he spoke about the areas where the car needs improvement in the next F1 season. He added:

"We gave up too many points this season for different reasons, for reliability, for disqualification in Austin, for impeding in qualy. This is clearly where we have to work. And we have to improve on aero, on engine, on every single topic. It’s not that we have something wrong and something good, and you fix something and you are making a step of four or five tenths."

Ferrari lost second place in the championship by a very small margin of three points. Even during the final race, there was a major strategic blunder that left Carlos Sainz out of points. While Charles Leclerc did finish in P2, George Russell's P3 was enough for Mercedes to defend second position.