LIGHTS TO FLAG: Coulthard on replacing Senna, dealing with Ron Dennis, and racing against Hakkinen

Lights To Flag explores the ups and downs of a Formula 1 driver’s career, and crucially, how F1 shaped their post-F1 life. This month, David Coulthard explains how he went from growing up in a village in Scotland to stepping in for the late Ayrton Senna at Williams, racing alongside Mika Hakkinen at McLaren, sowing the seeds for Red Bull’s title success – and then starting a television production company using what he learned from Formula 1…

A one-track mind

From the tiny Scottish village of Twynholm, near the border with England, David Coulthard would take his karting seriously as a child. He remarks, simply, that there was nothing else to focus on.