Di Resta misses outposted in F117 | 04 | 2011
BATHGATE'S PAUL DI RESTA'S grand prix point-scoring run ended when he finished a frustrating 11th in the Chinese Grand Prix, just one place away from scoring for his third Formula One race in succession.
But the Scot, who qualified his Force India VJM04 a mightily impressive eighth on Saturday, the day he celebrated his 25th birthday, headed for Shanghai airport quietly satisfied with his performance.
"Of course I would have preferred to have scored points for the third race in a row," F1 rookie Di Resta, who again qualified and finished the race ahead of his more experienced team-mate Adrian Sutil, explained.
"But I knew it was always going to be quite a tough race, starting from where we were. We came very close to scoring points, but just missed out at the end when the tyres had gone off."
Di Resta's weekend had been compromised by the loss of a whole practice session to a fuel pressure problem on Friday, and he admitted more time to work on race simulations might have prompted them to take three stops over two.
"Having gone into the race without heavy fuel runs may have compromised us a bit," he continued. "We didn't quite get the aero balance right at the start, but the second and third stints I think were pretty good.
"Maybe a three-stop strategy would have suited us better, but only time will tell in the simulations."
Di Resta's afternoon ended with a moment of drama when he tangled with the Renault of Nick Heidfeld while battling for position on the closing lap. As the German tried to run round the outside of the Scot's car, the two brushed against each other.
Race stewards investigated the incident, but were happy to write it off as a racing incident requiring no punishment.
"Overall I am still very happy on how the weekend went considering we qualified into Q3 and came close to scoring points once again," Di Resta added.
"We came here with relatively strong performance and I think we have to be very thankful for that."
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Jim McGill