Di Resta's birthday aimposted in F114 | 04 | 2011
TWO GRANDS PRIX into his Formula One career, Bathgate's Paul di Resta is determined to give himself the biggest birthday present in China this weekend. The Scot, who celebrates his 25th birthday on Saturday, is aiming to score points in his third grand prix in succession.
"Yeh, it would be a great birthday present to score again this weekend," Di Resta, who finished 10th in both Australia and Malaysia, said today after walking the Shanghai International circuit with his Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil.
"I'm obviously delighted with what we've achieved in the opening two races, but what matters now is what happens this weekend." And the Scot, who has outqualified Sutil in both opening races, is keen to use the German's pace as a barometer to measure his own pace.
"You can judge your performance on my teammate, and thankfully its been close," Di Resta continued. "Adrian is experienced, and I'm having to learn a lot quickly. It's tough to do what we are doing.
"But it's also a team effort over the weekend and the whole season. We're working well together because the constructors' championship is very important for the team."
Di Resta has prior knowledge of the circuit having completed a number of laps there last year in his role as Force India test driver, and he acknowledged the circuit demands an approach different to that at Melbourne and Sepang.
"The circuit at Shanghai demands something different from the cars and drivers," he continued. "It has long corners, and in the approaches it's hard to pinpoint braking areas and turn-in points.
""The other thing is the weather will be quite a bit different to Malaysia in terms of the heat and humidity. That in turn has a knock-on effect on how the tyres need to be managed, so it's something both the team and I, plus the guys from Pirelli, will be concentrating hard on.
"But we're confident we'll be able to deliver the performance required and hopefully maintain our record of scoring in every race so far this season."
Red Bull's Sebastien Vettel heads into the race looking to win his third race of the season but the German, who already leads the McLaren of Jenson Button by 24 points, is expected to face stiffer competition from the Englishman.
"In terms of fine-tuning the car, hopefully we will get a bit closer this weekend," Button said. "When we were testing in Malaysia we were making changes and it was making a massive difference in terms of lap time and consistency.
"We have some updates here. I don't know if Red Bull Racing has, it is difficult to know, but I think you will also see a couple of other teams quick here."
Meanwhile at Ferrari, Fernando Alonso has called on his team to be open and realistic about its performance and expectations.
"When we have a competitive car, then we need to deliver the win we all want," the double world champ, who finished sixth in Malaysia and is 30 points behind Vettel, said, "but at the moment we need to be more realistic, honest with ourselves and perhaps think of the podium as a main target."
Keep up-to-date with all the latest news by following us at twitter.com/scotcars
Jim McGill