David Coulthard is a popular Formula One pundit and radio presenter who hasn’t shied away from his share of interesting headlines during and after his sporting career
David Coulthard has lived quite the life thanks to his successful F1 career. The Scot was comfortable making waves both on and off the track.
Be it his carefree lifestyle or his cunning manoeuvres, DC was rarely out of the spotlight. He continues to throw caution to the wind, recently reassuring fans that he’s “all good” following a motorbike accident that left him with a broken collarbone.
The former Formula One star – who won 13 Grand Prix in his time behind the wheel – appeared on Channel 4 with his arm in a sling at the Chinese Grand Prix last month. Fellow presenter Steve Jones referenced the injury as he cleared up concerns from fans, saying: “I just want to point out really quickly, DC has had a bit of a tumble on his bike, he’s broken his collarbone. But you’re okay, yes?”
Coulthard responded: “Yes, all good.” The pundit has been a regular fixture on the likes of Sky Sports, BBC and Channel 4 since 2010, and has made millions from his racing and broadcast careers.
Here, Mirror Sport has detailed some of Coulthard’s biggest headlines, including his playboy days, eye-watering net worth and “bulls***” F1 claims.
What is David Coulthard’s net worth?
As per Celebrity Net Worth, the 54-year-old is worth a whopping £61.8million from his days as a F1 driver and now as a successful pundit. Before Coulthard officially joined the ranks of the elite, he was a test driver for Williams.
He made his debut for the team in 1994 but didn’t really see any success until he moved to McLaren. After one win and a third-place finish in 1995, Coulthard joined McLaren in 1996 and won 12 Grand Prix with them across an eight-year career.
His best Championship finish came in 2001 when he came second to Ferrari icon Michael Schumacher. He then moved on to Red Bull from 2005 until 2008 but didn’t win another race in his career – and he retired from F1 at the end of the season.
Coulthard joined the BBC alongside late F1 icon Eddie Jordan after his retirement and has also worked as a pundit for Channel 4 and Sky Sports over the years. Jordan and Coulthard also began an F1 podcast called Formula for Success in 2023 – but following his co-host’s tragic death from bladder and prostate cancer, it remains unclear what the podcast’s future holds.
Who is David Coulthard’s partner?
Coulthard is currently engaged to Swedish model Sigrid Silversand, after they got together in 2021. After a four-year relationship, he proposed to Silversand during a romantic getaway in Mauritius earlier this year.
The 31-year-old model is 23 years younger than Coulthard himself, and has been dating the F1 pundit following his divorce from ex-wife Karen Minier. The Belgian television presenter married Coulthard in 2013 after begining a relationship in 2005.
The former couple have a 15-year-old son together, karting prodigy Dayton Minier Coulthard, who will be racing for Douglas Motorsport as a driver in the GB4 Championship this year.
Coulthard’s engagement to Silversand was revealed by the F1 pundit’s podcast co-host Jordan, who told Boat International about his happiness that the pair got betrothed at the time.
Jordan said: “I’ve got to send a very special congratulations to my old mate David Coulthard, who’s just run off to Mauritius and got engaged to a Swedish model 23 years his junior! She’s taller than him, which I like to remind him about as often as I can.”
Silversand has also spoken out on the engagement, telling the Daily Mail that her fiancee did well to hide his plans during the holiday. She said: “It was a surprise, as David is really good at hiding. He kept it a secret and asked my parents for permission to marry me. He’s a proper gentleman, and there are only a few of them left.”
Playboy days
Coulthard hasn’t just made headlines with his romantic relationships – his sex life has also been discussed openly in the past. The F1 legend suggested in an interview in 2002 – while he was still racing – that making love before taking the wheel made him faster.
The Irish Examiner reported that when asked whether he had sex before racing, Coulthard said: “Sure, why not? Sex makes you fast.”
Many would assume that his natural ability to drive is the secret to Coulthard’s success in F1, but he might attribute his 12 Grand Prix wins to some personal time before taking to the grid.
Coulthard’s reputation in F1 was somewhat of a ladies’ man, which isn’t surprising considering he revealed his hero in life was the Playboy king himself – Hugh Hefner. The Daily Star reported that in 2010, the ex-athlete admitted he was attracted to the glitz and glamour of the partying lifestyle depicted in sports.
Coulthard said: “I might be setting myself up by nominating Hugh Hefner as my hero but I have a few good reasons. I’m sure Playboy has influenced me. Although I took my racing very seriously, I knew that there was always another side to it, the glamour and the parties.
“I always knew it wasn’t just about the driving, that there could be an off-track lifestyle associated with what happened on it. In Twynholm, I was three miles from school and 30 miles from a town with even the most basic entertainment, like a cinema or a McDonalds.”
He added: “The Playboy world could hardly have been further away, even when I got into motorsport through karting and watching F1 on the BBC. Things started to change when I found out about this magazine called Playboy, which was read by the truckies who worked for my father’s road haulage business.
“These guys spend a lot of time on the road, on their own, so copies of Playboy, with stories from exotic locations around the world and, yes, pictures of naked girls, were pretty popular, as you might imagine. I didn’t become a fan of Playboy just because I wanted a quick thrill. I used to read it from cover to cover.
“People sometimes forget that it had some of the best writers and that it was much more than a porn mag. Through Playboy, I started to learn about a world I could only dream of. Hefner very much had an idea of ‘lifestyle’ that shaped it.”
‘Bulls***’ F1 claim
However, despite his outlandish sex claims and dreams of becoming the next Hefer, Coulthard has also been very vocal in rubbishing claims that female racecar drivers don’t have “what it takes”.
The Scot has called out American racer Danica Patrick, who has been a divisive figure in motorsport for some time with her controversial takes.
The pundit – who was the first woman to win an IndyCar race and has 191 starts in NASCAR – debated on the topic of female drivers earlier this year, and claimed that the “feminine mind” may not be able to handle the aggression of being a professional single-seater driver.
Patrick said: “It takes 100 guys to come through to find a good one, and then it takes 100 girls. That takes a long time to find a good one, right? It’s just, the odds are not in favour of there always being one or being many of them.
“At the end of the day, I think that the nature of the sport is masculine. It’s aggressive. You have to handle the car – not only just the car because that’s skill, but the mindset that it takes to be really good is something that’s not normal in a feminine mind, a female mind.”
There are only two women in the entire history of F1 who have qualified for a race, with Lella Lombardi the most recent debutant in 1976. Despite this, Coulthard believes that women will succeed in the sport one day, as he called out Patrick’s “bulls***” claim.
Speaking to the Daily Mail in March, the former racer said: “Of course it will happen. Without question. It’s utter bulls*** that women don’t have the strength to do it. Anyone who doesn’t train doesn’t have what it takes to perform in motor racing – whether you’re a man or a woman. An untrained person doesn’t have the strength to do anything.
“I’m 53 and I wouldn’t be able to drive an F1 car quickly for more than 10 laps in my physical condition, now that I’m on the other side of my peak of fitness. I had to train like an athlete twice a day, with a trainer, for years, to be able to do my job. You can either do a fast lap time or you can’t… Sport is about delivery.
“It’s not my opinion that there will be a woman in F1 – it’s just a fact. But I can’t tell you right now who that person is. I assure you that every single F1 team would sign someone up right now, if they thought they could get that person.”
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