THE setting for his last set-piece press conference might have been a bit plusher, after all these years. In the back room of the dingy garage that serves as the headquarters for the teams at the dilapidated Interlagos circuit, David Coulthard sits on a physio’s couch alongside the hanging rail for the Red Bull team overalls.

It’s time to go for the Scot, whose 13 grand prix victories - out of 246 races - put him seventh on the list of British drivers. In terms of career points, 535 and counting, he is top. “I left home on Thursday and as I was about to get in the car, it hit me that I was setting off as a grand prix driver and would be coming back as Joe Bloggs,” he says. “That was the first time I really thought about what it would mean.”

The good news for Coulthard is that he is leaving his sport after 14 years at a moment of his own choosing. The last time retirement beckoned, he was forced out of McLaren and had no obvious place to go. Now, at the age of 37, with his first child due, the Scot’s timing has been perfect.

If only, he might say, he had shown similar aptitude for being in the right place at the right time in his prime when a lack of consistency or perhaps sheer bad luck cost him the chance of a drivers’ title. He finished second in the world championship once and third five times, which speaks of a driver a beat short of greatness.

He was unfortunate to be forever banging his head against a brick wall named Michael Schumacher and to be pitched against teammates, Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen, in his most competitive seasons at McLaren. He never once had a decent car and a team all to himself. But Coulthard still enjoyed his share of highs, victory at Interlagos in 2001, two wins apiece at Silverstone and Monaco, and leaves Formula One with his integrity intact and wallet full.

“I just wish I could remember more about the early days,” he says. “You’re young, dumb and full of come, aren’t you? I just wish I’d taken the time to savour the moment a bit more. But then if you do that you’re not pushing hard enough. Thank God for video is all I can say because I have no recollection of my first podium place at all (second at Estoril in 1994, driving a Williams).”

Next season, behind the microphone, he will wonder at all the fuss and nonsense of his superficial old world. He will be an articulate and perceptive analyst, quick to praise but not afraid to criticise. Nothing against Felipe Massa, a driver with whom he has tangled in the past, but quietly he hopes that Hamilton can bring home the title, even if it will obscure his own farewell.

“To the young drivers I’m just an old fart,” he says. “But I take real pleasure from the general warmth towards me as a driver. I’ve raced for 26 years now at different levels and it’s difficult for anyone to imagine what it will be like to step out of the car for the last time. But I’m not stopping because I don’t love driving Grand Prix cars or I don’t love racing. I recognise that my journey has reached its natural conclusion so when I walk out of the paddock on Sunday that will be it.”

All of the grid turned out on Thursday for a photograph to mark his last race. By nightfall, he will be in a different timezone, able to live life by the hour, not by the fractions of a second.