Coulthard hails 'best title fight ever'

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Former Formula 1 driver turned pundit and commentator David Coulthard reckons that this year's championship battle might be the best yet in the history of the sport.

"This season we have one of the best title bouts in a long time and possibly the best ever," he told Sports Bild. "It will go down in history.

The lead has gone back and forth between Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton at almost every race. Currently Hamilton has the upper hand with a 24 point advantage over Vettel after 12 races.

But with nine events still to go, that's still far too close for comfort. And Coulthard says that the shocks are far from over with mistakes possible on either side, and that it's still anybody's year.

"Lewis and Sebastian are not just extremely fast and focused but completely different characters," explained the former Williams, McLaren and Red Bull driver.

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"I think they respect each other on a sporting level, although they're too different to be friends.

"It's because of their strengths that they're in the lead," he continued. "In the end it will be the strengths that are the decisive factor, not the weaknesses.

"Only after Abu Dhabi should we tally up who made the most mistakes and how many points he lost. Not before."

Coulthard added that Hamilton was frequently misunderstood as being the more aggressive driver of the pair.

"He does not like trouble, actually," the Scot insisted. "After Baku last year, for example, he wanted talks between men to clear things up with Vettel.

"Sebastian is similar, but he's a family man and very mature," he added.

And he said that the impact of their respective team mates on the outcome of this year's title battle shouldn't be overlooked.

"In Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen they have two good teammates who do not necessarily play the water carrier," Coulthard warned.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.