Di Resta: No surprisesposted in F105 | 02 | 2013

BATHGATE'S PAUL DI RESTA completed the opening day of official Formula One testing at Jerez today, and admitted it threw up no surprises.

The 26-year-old Scot completed 89 laps in his Mercedes-powered Sahara Force India and set the fourth fastest time at the Spanish circuit.

"Forgetting what anyone else is doing, I would say we have carried on as we thought we would," Di Resta said.

"Today was quite positive. We got through the programme, got the data collection.

"This test is about correlation with the factory and understanding the car. That's our focus.

"It's nice to get the car out on track in anger, and there's nothing thrown up that we didn't think was there."

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Di Resta, still waiting for confirmation on who his new team-mate will be for 2013, will share testing duties this week with the team's simulator driver, James Rossiter, and 2012 test driver Jules Bianchi.

"James is very inexperienced in Formula 1 at the moment, but he's doing our simulator work so it's important for him to understand the correlation from the simulator to the track," Di Resta continued.

"Jules has obviously done a lot with Ferrari in the past and a lot with us, and the team has decided to put him in the car.

"Ultimately it will be another opinion on the car, and that's useful for the engineers to work with.

"But it's not hampering my preparations at all. I've got my programme and that's what I'm focusing on."

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Jim McGill