Di Resta 'clears the air' with Sutilposted in F118 | 04 | 2013
BATHGATE'S PAUL DI RESTA heads into this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix having held 'clear the air' talks with his Sahara Force India team-mate, Adrian Sutil.
The German ran Di Resta off the track, on to the grass, midway through the opening lap of last weekend's grand prix in China.
Justice though was deemed to be done when Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez, one of the drivers to take advantage of Di Resta's offroad excursion, ran into the back of Sutil forcing him into retirement.
Di Resta, meanwhile, fought back from 14th to eventually finish a comfortable eight.
"Yes, we've spoken," Di Resta (pictured), who stopped off in Dubai this week to celebrate his 27th birthday, said today.
"As far as I'm concerned, the matter's been dealt with. We move on."
The Scot will be hoping he can repeat his success in Bahrain of 12 months ago, when he finished an excellent sixth.
"Traditionally we seem to do well here, so hopefully we can continue that record this weekend," he continued.
"The guys have been working away hard behind the scenes to ensure we have the quickest car we can have, and so far everything's looking strong.
"We showed in the final part of the race in Shanghai exactly the speed potential the car has.
"While the first part was frustrating simply because I kept getting stuck in traffic, once I got into clear air towards the end, the car was awesome."
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And Di Resta isn't concerned about the searing hot temperatures which greeted the teams when they arrived in Bahrain.
"We were strong in the heat of Malaysia, so there are no real worries about the temperature, apart from me making sure I put enough sunblock on," he laughed.
"Last year the car worked well in Bahrain, which gives us confidence heading into the weekend.
"We’ve got a few things to understand and I think we can go forward a bit more. We’re back to the medium and hard compounds of the Pirelli tyres, the same as we had in Malaysia, where we were strong, so hopefully we'll have another point-scoring weekend."
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, winner in China, spent yesterday playing down the perceived supremacy of his car.
Asked if he felt the 2013 Ferrari was now the benchmark for others to aspire to, the double world champ said: "I don't think so.
"In Australia we were clearly not the quickest, in Malaysia we were struggling a little bit, especially in qualifying where we were not so good, and in the race Felipe (Massa) was fifth, so it is not that Sebastien Vettel was dominant in the race.
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"Then in China, Red Bull chose a strange strategy on Saturday and it compromised the race a little bit.
"So I think we need to keep improving and we need to be a little bit faster. There are some new pieces coming for this race, we have some new components coming for Barcelona and Monaco, so I hope over the next month or month-and-a-half we can be at the level of the other cars."
Alonso heads into this weekend trailing the Red Bull of championship leader Vettel by nine points, with the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen six points closer to the German in second.
But while Vettel sits on 52 points, his Aussie team-mate Mark Webber languishes 26 points adrift after being hijacked in Multi21-gate in Malaysia, then retiring in China when the right rear wheel fell off his car.
"He'll be fine this weekend," Red Bull team boss Christian Horner confidently said of Webber, who will also receive a six-place grid penalty this weekend after crashing into Jean-Eric Vergne five days ago.
Meanwhile, in the Mercedes camp, team principal Ross Brawn believes this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix will prove whether or not his outfit has a car that can fight for the 2013 Formula 1 title.
"We've been to three races this year and we have not been bad," Brawn, whose No1 driver Lewis Hamilton sits fourth in the championship, just 12 points behind Vettel, explained.
"Bahrain will be the final one of the quartet that will tell us if we have a car we can get to work at most places.
"We seem to have, but we have to lift the performance another two or three tenths compared to the opposition, and we know it is a moving target."
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Jim McGill