Coulthard sees maturity in Hamilton: 'I'd still have been complaining'

The British Mercedes driver felt himself aggrieved by race control during Max Verstappen's victory in Abu Dhabi at the end of 2021. According to Hamilton, they made wrong decisions and thus he missed out on his eighth world championship victory.

Hamilton, however, started the new season with fresh courage a few months later. Coulthard finds it clever of the experienced driver and thinks greats like Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost would have done the same. "I would like to believe in my romantic motorsport heart, that there was enough competitive respect," states Coulthard. "At the end their was always a handshake, a bit like boxers who beat the hell out of each other then they shake hands and cuddle."

Coulthard on respect at Hamilton

Coulthard saw Hamilton do the same and the former Formula One driver thinks he can do it largely because of his experience. "When he was younger it would've been more difficult to do that," says Coulthard, who himself would have reacted differently. "I'd still have been complaining."

He himself remembers well what he was like when he was young. So he is not surprised that talented drivers have more trouble perceiving the whole thing. "With age comes maturity. The benefit of youth is you don't know, you don't know. You're not scared of anything. As you get older you start to understand the consequences, the maturity enables you to deal with different situations."