Di Resta's DTM hopes wrecked 29 | 06 | 2014

    BATHGATE'S PAUL DI RESTA saw any hopes of his first German Touring Car (DTM) Championship win of the season disappear early at the Norisring.

    The 28-year-old Scot had qualified second on the grid alongside his Mercedes-Benz team-mate, Canadian Robert Wickens.

    Officials decided the opening three laps of today's 82-lap race, on the short 1.4-mile street circuit, should be run behind the safety car after a torrential downpour drenched the surface just before the start.

    But at the end of the first racing lap at competitive speed, Di Resta's car was unceremoniously punted into a 360-degree spin by the Audi of England's Jamie Green as they battled for second.

    Stewards ultimately handed Green a five-second penalty for causing the incident, but while the Audi driver recovered to finish second, 23.9secs behind race winner Wickens, Di Resta's race was ruined.

    "There was really no way back from that," the Scot, who rejoined 10th but eventually finished a distant 15th, stated. "My race gets wrecked, the car gets damaged, and he gets a five-second penalty and manages to finish second? It's not right.

    "I had a car capable of winning that race, as Robert proved, so I'm really not happy to have been punted off the way I was.

    "There was no need to make the contact Jamie did: conditions were so bad it was like driving on ice, and he would have known that even the slightest contact was going to spin me round."

    Related: Paul di Resta starts from front row of DTM grid

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    Jim McGill

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