David Coulthard admits he would have rather retired instead of joining one F1 team

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David Coulthard has admitted that he would have rather left F1 than driven for Jaguar during his time on the grid.

Coulthard was chatting on the Formula For Success Podcast about his career.

The Scottish driver was one of the most talented prospects of his generation.

He entered Formula 1 in 1994, replacing Ayrton Senna at Williams after his untimely passing at Imola.

Coulthard shared the car with world champion Nigel Mansell before a fantastic second season with the team that saw him take five pole positions and his maiden race win.

When people think of Coulthard, they immediately think of his time during McLaren, particularly alongside Mika Hakkinen.

The pair were incredibly quick although Coulthard narrowly missed out on a title due to the dominance of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari.

In the early 2000s, the Scottish driver would have known his time would have been coming to an end at the team.

However, Coulthard admits he would have rather retired from F1 than joined Jaguar at the time.

The team were in trouble but in a bizarre twist of fate, Coulthard sort of ended up with the outfit anyway.

He joined them under a much more recognisable name to more recent fans and it’s safe to say they’ve enjoyed a serious change in fortunes.

Coulthard would rather quit F1 than race for Jaguar

Speaking about his time at McLaren coming to an end, Coulthard said: “At the end, when I knew I was leaving McLaren, we spoke to all of the teams. I saw we, Martin Brundle was my contractual manager and one of the teams that we actually had a meeting with was Jaguar.

“And I recall specifically, and Jaguar became Red Bull if you recall at the end of that 2004 season, Red Bull bought the team.

“But I recall saying to Martin, I would rather retire or become a test driver somewhere with the hope of coming back to Formula 1 than race under the structure that was Jaguar.

“With the greatest respect to the people of Jaguar at that time, the management structure and the way they had to report to Ford and I think you had about four or five upgrades a year, it just didn’t strike me as being a winning formula.

“And then of course all of that changed when Red Bull bought Jaguar and rebranded it and that first year in 2005 it was essentially a Jaguar car painted Red Bull because everything happens so late, you’re just taking over the legacy.”

Coulthard was part of the very first driver line-up Red Bull ran in F1 after taking over from Jaguar.

The team joined the F1 grid in 1999 after Ford bought out Stewart and the iconic British Racing Green was suddenly in the paddock.

Although Jaguar’s brand was in the sport, it was always just Ford’s works team and Coulthard was wary of their relationship.

The team managed two podiums during their 85 races, with Eddie Irvine finishing third in Monaco in 2001 and Indianapolis in 2002.

The short-lived team have fared much better since rebranding as Red Bull and Coulthard would probably quite like to switch places with Max Verstappen right now.