Di Resta ready to roll in Montrealposted in F104 | 06 | 2013
SCOTS F1 ACE, Bathgate's Paul di Resta, heads to Montreal this weekend for the Canadian Grand Prix determined to build on his, and his Sahara Force India team's excellent start to the 2013 F1 season.
A fortnight after storming from 17th on the grid in Monaco to eventually finish ninth, Di Resta is hungry to get back to the front-end of the field at a circuit he enjoys.
The unique Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, built on the man-made Ile Notre-Dame island in the middle of the St Lawrence River, is one of Di Resta's favourite tracks on the calendar.
The 27-year-old Scot knows it's a circuit which traditionally has suited his car: and he sees no reasons for it to be otherwise this weekend, as he told Jim McGill.
JM: You've gone well in Canada on your two previous grands prix in Montreal: what are your impressions of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve?
PdR: It's like a street track the way you have to treat it. It starts very dirty and then grips up as the weekend unfolds.
There are a lot of big braking areas; it's very demanding on brakes. It's a low downforce, big, raw power circuit, so that's what you need to be fast there.
It's a nice mix because it's not all high speed corners; there are some slow areas and then long fast straights. It's very easy to make a mistake, and very easy to flat-spot tyres: it’s another track where there's no margin for error.
Does it have a particularly difficult section?
Like in so many tracks, the first sector — that's the twisty part — is probably key. The last sector is also very demanding because you've literally got two corners you arrive very quickly at, and then the corners themselves are very slow; so you can win a lot of time and, in complete contrast, you can drop a significant amount of time if you don't get it right.
Actually, I think the final sector is the hardest part when you factor in taking the fuel out as the race progresses, and using DRS and KERS. It's a very fine balance also how much we trim off the downforce.
After all the glitz and glam of Monaco a fortnight ago, I guess Montreal's a quieter event from a PR perspective?
Definitely; far quieter. It's a very chilled environment, but at the same time a great party when the race comes.
How Montreal changes when F1 comes to town is amazing. The support it gets is phenomenal; it's always one of the best-supported races right through the whole weekend.
It's definitely something very special, being in the middle of the lake, and the Gilles Villeneuve facility itself is second to none.
Monaco was a tough weekend, after the problems in qualifying, but you must reflect positively on your drive from 17th to ninth in the race?
Yes: strange to think that ultimately we were disappointed with ninth, which shows you how far we've come in terms of our realistic expectations.
We showed during all three free practice sessions that we had the potential to qualify well into the top 10, but the well-documented problem we had in qualifying stopped us achieving that.
These things happen in motorsport, and as a team we've discussed what happened and moved on.
The Canadian Grand Prix is the 100th race for the team. You've been close to a podium finish already this season on a couple of occasions: can you give the team something to celebrate this weekend?
I'll certainly be doing everything I can to give them something to celebrate. It's a credit to everyone in the team — both in the grand prix garage, and back at the factory at Silverstone — that we’ve been competitive on every track this year.
We arrive in Montreal definitely expecting to be at our usual level once again, and as I said earlier, it's a track that suits us and I'm confident we can fight close to the front again.
Reaching the 100 grands prix landmark is a significant achievement and it’s great to see how much the team has grown during that time.
It’s a credit to the commitment of the shareholders and hopefully we can give them something to smile about come Sunday evening.
Paul is a global ambassador for Whyte & Mackay Whisky
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Jim McGill