Coulthard philosophical despite cruel retirement.

David Coulthard was sanguine about the disappointing end to his Bahrain Grand Prix after a superb drive through the field that was set to be rewarded with points was ruined by a retirement-inducing driveshaft failure.

It was an agonising day for Red Bull Racing in general with both Coulthard and Mark Webber running comfortably in the points before being forced out with mechanical problems, retirements that almost certainly prevented the team from getting off the mark this season.

Still, despite the anti-climatic end to Coulthard's weekend, the Scot was nonetheless pleased to have shown an impressive turn of pace that had him scything through the field at a tremendous rate from 21st on the grid.

Citing a more aggressive fuel strategy that saw the team ignore the one-stop fuel load usually adopted by out of position drivers as the reason for his pace, Coulthard was happy to show the progress the team are making following a conservative start to the season.

"We lost the right rear drive shaft and I had to stop," he said. "We were on an aggressive race strategy, which had been working well. Typically from the back you would go one stop and long but, as we saw in Malaysia, the one stop option didn't provide a chance to overtake - so we went for the shorter strategy.

"The race car felt good, the strategy was good, and I think it would have paid off. We're going through some growing pains at the moment, but we will get through it and we'll be stronger on the other side, everyone's working very hard back in the factory."

Webber meanwhile was rather more frustrated with the way his race came to an end having run comfortably in eighth position for the majority of the race, the Australian slowed first by an open fuel lap and then forced to retire thanks to a gearbox problem

"The car had an open fuel flap in the second stint, which was the same problem we had in Australia. It's bloody frustrating. After the pit stop, I got myself back in position again, but then something failed and I had to retire. The pace was good, but the result is the same even so."