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From a well-to-do Scottish Family, which ran a successful trucking business, Coulthard was surrounded by racing from an early age. He was karting from the age of eight and was a multiple Scottish champion before he moved into Formula Ford racing at the en
He moved into Formula 3 in 1991 with PSR and fought a season-long battle for the title with Rubens Barrichello, the Brazilian eventually coming out ahead but Coulthard won the Marlboro Masters and Macau GPs to underline his potential.
He moved to Formula 3000 in 1992 with PSR but the team was not very competitive and Coulthard finished only ninth in the series. At the end of the year however he had another F1 test with the Camel Benetton Ford team.
In 1993 he switched from PSR to Pacific Racing. It proved to be a good step and he won the race at Enna and a string of good showings saw him end the year third in the championship. That year he began testing for the Williams-Renault team and also raced a
Named as the official Williams test driver in 1994 Coulthard stepped into the limelight after Ayrton Senna was killed. Only an ignition problem stopped Coulthard from finishing third in his first Grand Prix at Barcelona. Williams decided to alternate Coul
year. Hakkinen won the World Championship. It was a similar story in 1999 with David winning the British and Belgian GPs but being beaten to fourth place in the World Championship.
In 2000 Coulthard won the British GP and a week later was fortunate to emerge unscathed from a plane crash at Lyon-Satolas airport. It seemed to give him a boost and he won again at Monaco and in 2001 it was Coulthard rather than Hakkinen who led the McLa
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