The perfect team-mate
With the new Supercars season beginning this weekend, New Zealand motorsport legend Greg Murphy look at the Kiwi drivers. Today, Fabian Coulthard.
2019 was another year where Fabian Coulthard helped DJR Team Penske win the team’s championship, while coming fourth in the driver’s championship himself.
The 37-year-old had just two race wins, compared to 18 from his team-mate Scott McLaughlin.
Like McLaughlin he is in the final year of his contract with DJR Team Penske and needs to have a good season to stop other drivers making moves for his seat, one of the most prized in Supercars.
It’s been often said that Coulthard hasn’t had the luck McLaughlin has had, but that’s not something Murphy buys into.
‘‘Motorsport isn’t about turning up and hoping for the best,’’ Murphy told Stuff.
‘‘I’m not saying that’s what Fabian does and if you want to talk about luck, I’d feel pretty lucky to be a part of Team Penske. He needs to try to adapt and change in the areas that he’s become very accustomed to,’’
Murphy said.
‘‘He’s going to have to continue to learn and maybe emulate the way Scott drives his car.
‘‘Just work incredibly hard, utilising the data, the information and the resources he’s got there, to continue to better himself, to become more stable at the front end.’’
One of the reasons Coulthard is so well liked inside DJR TeamPenske is because he’s the perfect team-mate for McLaughlin.
The two Kiwi drivers get on well and there’s no clash of egos. But McLaughlin has consistently shown he’s the quicker driver and Murphy says that’s something Coulthard might need to accept.
‘‘You want to beat your teammate, but maybe that’s not going to be a regular possibility.
‘‘Maybe you’ve got to focus on being the next guy after your team-mate and if your team-mate is winning, then you need to be No 2.
‘‘If you can do that, considering where Scotty has gone and quite rightly established himself, I would be pretty happy with that.’’
Being a strong No 2 and a good team-mate was a role Craig Lowndes had with Triple Eight Race Engineering. Lowndes was Jamie Whincup’s team-mate from 2006 until he stood down as a primary driver last season.
He finished second in the championship six times over that period, while Whincup won it on seven occasions.
‘‘The last few years weren’t full of race wins, but he was still pretty consistent and in a good championship position,’’ Murphy said of Lowndes.
‘‘Fabian has been there too and he finished fourth last year.
‘‘He needs to make sure he’s disruptive amongst others up the front. If Scott is winning, then he needs to be right there in that next group all the time.
‘‘That’s not an easy thing to do and it’s going to be harder this year.
‘‘That’s why I don’t think there’s going to be a runaway winner of the title this year, because there have been changes within the cars.’’