IT'S GREAT TO SCORE POINTS AT MONZA
Monza, Italy: Sunday, September 11, 2011
Paul narrowly avoided a first-corner pile-up, which took out three cars, to finish his first Formula One Grand Prix at Monza in eighth place.
The 25-year-old Scot, who again outqualified his Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil, scored four world championship points which, importantly, edged his team one point ahead of Sauber in the Constructors' title race.
"Those four points could prove crucial at the end of the season in the race for sixth place in the Constructors' Championship," Paul said after finishing the Italian Grand Prix. "But it wasn't the easiest of races.
"My launch wasn't very good, but fortunately the guys around me didn't get good ones either. It was a bit strange, because my pre-launch was very good.
"Heading down towards Turn One, the right-left chicane, got alongside the Mercedes of Nico (Rosberg), then suddenly saw the Williams of Rubens (Barrichello) lunging down the inside.
"As I braked to turn into the first part of the chicane I'd slipped immediately behind Nico, who in turn had Vitaly (Petrov) on his inside.
"Out the corner of my eye, in my peripheral vision, I could see a car careering down sideways on the grass. Liuzzi's car slammed into the side of Vitaly's Renault, which then collected Nico's Merc. Rubens got caught up in the mess too.
"Instantly I avoided the accident by darting left down through the escape road across the chicane; it was the only thing I could do to ensure I wasn't another victim of the crash.
"But really, it was straightforward from there, though unluckily we lost a few positions at restarts. There was a bit of a tangle, and I had to back-out; Perez got by, then Maldonado got by, simply through Webber losing his front wing and me being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"But we went aggressive on the tyre strategy. I think we extracted as much as we could from what we had.
"We'll take these four points; it certainly helps in the constructors' championship, and now we've overtaken Sauber.
"Even with just a couple of laps remaining I had to push. I was in eighth and I knew Bruno (Senna) was catching me. I was on the primes and he was on the quicker options. We I knew we had a little bit in reserve.
"Obviously the team was keeping me updated, but it would have been tough if it had been any longer.
"We go into the flyways now; we've proved ourselves very strong on tracks where you need a bit of downforce and mechanical grip recently, so I'm quite happy going into it and hopefully we can keep up the performances to ensure we stay ahead of Sauber."
Paul
Credit: Paul Di Resta (www.pauldiresta.com)
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