Reflections on Germany
Wednesday ,27 July 2011
“Our pace has been very good”
Paul Di Resta hasn’t had a lot of luck lately, and things certainly didn’t go the way of the Force India driver at the German Grand Prix. His race was ruined by a nudge from behind on the first lap, and after that, it was always going to be an uphill struggle.
“I got a reasonable start, and I think I was in the same position,” says Paul. “I was next to Michael, and then I got hit from the back. It was obviously Nick Heidfeld, because he was the one who was stopped when I was spun round! It was out of my control – he just hit me from behind and spun. I think he got a drive-through penalty later on, but he had an incident with Buemi.”
Dropping from 12th to 24th on the first lap was a total disaster for Paul, and he lost a lot of time relative to the guys he would have been fighting. It was extremely frustrating.
“Of course it was, because you just lose 20 seconds. By the time you get through the traffic, the others are gone. It was harder than some tracks to pass the slower cars; it was definitely not an easy one. I don’t know why, perhaps just because the grip was very low.”
Paul did a long first stint, and was one of the last drivers to take a second set of tyres. He pitted on lap 23, having risen to 12th place. He dropped back after that stop, but by the end of the race, he was in a solid 13th, right on the tail of Jaime Alguersuari. His fastest lap was less than a tenth off team mate Adrian Sutil, who finished a superb sixth.
“It certainly showed that our pace has been very good. We went to Germany with a new package and Adrian brought in a lot of points for the team finishing sixth. Potentially there was an eighth place in there for me.
“The stints were very strong, and the strategy seemed good. The strategy paid off for Adrian, and he beat Mercedes. Adrian did well, he was quick all weekend, so credit to him.”
Paul is now looking ahead to Hungary, where he drove on Friday last year. Although the car has traditionally preferred low downforce tracks, he is optimistic: “You would have said that at Silverstone, which is high downforce, we would have struggled, but we were quite competitive there. So I’m relatively open-minded. Hungary is not Monaco, it’s tight but it’s fast.”
Credit: Force India (www.forceindiaf1.com)
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