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Formula 1
F1: Di Resta Upbeat Despite Grid Penalty
Force India driver moved back on grid due to gearbox change...
Paul di Resta's future with Force India is unclear for 2013 and beyond. (Photo: Getty Images)
Paul Di Resta enjoyed the best qualifying session of his Force India career in Monza by taking fourth place – but the Scot will start ninth thanks to a gearbox change penalty.
Di Resta, who sat out FP1 while test driver Jules Bianchi drove, has been fast all weekend, and was in the top five in all three parts of qualifying. He says that the team arrived with a good set-up.
“I think you’ve got to give the guys credit,” said Di Resta. “We obviously had a good simulator session and a good baseline to come here, we had good philosophy. I think each time we went on track we just slowly dialed it in. But we were always going to make a bigger improvement than other people, missing FP1 yesterday.
“What you learn in FP2 you then make another jump, and you saw that this morning, being third. I was a little bit hesitant about whether we’d be able to repeat that, where other people were. But we ran in the top four all of qualifying.
“And that shows the speed was there throughout the whole day. It’s unfortunate to start ninth, but if there’s any day you need a result like that to influence your race and put you in a points position it was today because it still put us in the top 10 – we’re starting in the points.
“What was nice about it was each time we went out on track we were able to keep on improving, improving and improving, and do something about it. Even in Q1 it was quite strange how long the session was. We went out, did a run, and came in in P4. And we said, ‘OK we’re confident we’re going to get through, so let’s sit in the garage.’
“It was nice to go out and do two runs in Q2 as opposed to one. The nice thing is that not everybody went quicker in Q3, and we managed to, although it was only half a tenth. Half a tenth is enough, and I knew if I could repeat the lap time we’d probably be in the top five.”
Di Resta is hoping that despite his penalty, he can bring home a good helping of points.
“We’ve certainly got to try and pick up on a missed opportunity in Spa. The speed is there. I just hope we can do it on high fuel, because we have been at a slight disadvantage to people round about us at that point in the race.
“The first corner is obviously the focal point, getting through that. A good launch is what you need. We’ll take it step by step. It’s obviously not won at the beginning of the race, it’s won at the end. Monza is normally very hard on the cars and it will certainly be hard on the tires with the heat and the track temperature.”
Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
Di Resta, who sat out FP1 while test driver Jules Bianchi drove, has been fast all weekend, and was in the top five in all three parts of qualifying. He says that the team arrived with a good set-up.
“I think you’ve got to give the guys credit,” said Di Resta. “We obviously had a good simulator session and a good baseline to come here, we had good philosophy. I think each time we went on track we just slowly dialed it in. But we were always going to make a bigger improvement than other people, missing FP1 yesterday.
“What you learn in FP2 you then make another jump, and you saw that this morning, being third. I was a little bit hesitant about whether we’d be able to repeat that, where other people were. But we ran in the top four all of qualifying.
“And that shows the speed was there throughout the whole day. It’s unfortunate to start ninth, but if there’s any day you need a result like that to influence your race and put you in a points position it was today because it still put us in the top 10 – we’re starting in the points.
“What was nice about it was each time we went out on track we were able to keep on improving, improving and improving, and do something about it. Even in Q1 it was quite strange how long the session was. We went out, did a run, and came in in P4. And we said, ‘OK we’re confident we’re going to get through, so let’s sit in the garage.’
“It was nice to go out and do two runs in Q2 as opposed to one. The nice thing is that not everybody went quicker in Q3, and we managed to, although it was only half a tenth. Half a tenth is enough, and I knew if I could repeat the lap time we’d probably be in the top five.”
Di Resta is hoping that despite his penalty, he can bring home a good helping of points.
“We’ve certainly got to try and pick up on a missed opportunity in Spa. The speed is there. I just hope we can do it on high fuel, because we have been at a slight disadvantage to people round about us at that point in the race.
“The first corner is obviously the focal point, getting through that. A good launch is what you need. We’ll take it step by step. It’s obviously not won at the beginning of the race, it’s won at the end. Monza is normally very hard on the cars and it will certainly be hard on the tires with the heat and the track temperature.”
Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
Spanish Grand Prix
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