Paul di Resta

Paul di Resta

Born	(1986-04-16) 16 April 1986 (age 26) Uphall, West Lothian, Scotland, UK
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	British
2012 team	Force India-Mercedes
2012 car #	11
Races	24
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	42
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First race	2011 Australian Grand Prix
Last race	2012 Monaco Grand Prix
2011 position	13th (27 pts)

Paul di Resta (born 16 April 1986 in Uphall, Livingston, Scotland,^[1][2]) is a Scottish racing driver, currently competing in Formula One with Force India. He is also a former DTM and Formula 3 Euroseries champion beating team mate and future Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel.

Personal life

Di Resta, who grew up in Uphall, West Lothian, is the cousin of fellow racing drivers Dario Franchitti and Marino Franchitti.^[3] His step-father was Scottish footballer Dougie McCracken.^[4]

In February 2010, di Resta was made a director of his family's leisure firm. Di Resta resides in Monaco.

Career

Karting

He started his career in karting, racing in various competitive series of karts from 1994 until 2002. In 2001 he won the British JICA Championship.

Formula Renault

He stepped up to single-seaters at the end of 2002, when he competed in the British Formula Renault Winter Series. He raced in British Formula Renault full-time in 2003 with the Eurotek Motorsport team, finishing seventh in the standings with one race win. He switched to Manor Motorsport for 2004, finishing third in the championship standings with four wins. He also entered some races of Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 with the Manor team. He also won the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of The Year Award in 2004. The award had been won by his cousin Dario Franchitti in 1992.

Formula Three

Di Resta switched to the Formula Three Euroseries with Manor Motorsport in 2005, finishing tenth in the standings. For 2006 he moved to the ASM Formule 3 team, winning the championship with five wins, beating team mate and future Formula One World Drivers Champion, Sebastian Vettel. Di Resta also won the 2006 BP Ultimate Masters at Circuit Park Zandvoort.

DTM

Di Resta finished runner-up in the 2008 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season.

In 2007, di Resta switched from single-seaters to race in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) touring car racing series, for Mercedes. In the championship he finished 5th overall behind drivers Mattias Ekstrom (who won his second DTM title), Bruno Spengler, Martin Tomczyk and Jamie Green. Di Resta was the highest driver in the standings to drive a non-2007 car. His performances earned him a 2008 Mercedes C Klasse for the 2008 season, in which he won two races and finishing second in the points, four points behind eventual champion Timo Scheider of Audi. In 2009, he finished third overall, behind Scheider and compatriot Gary Paffett. In 2010, he won three races in a row on the way to winning the championship.

Formula One

Di Resta during practice at the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix.

Di Resta tested for the McLaren Formula One team, and was in the frame for a drive with the Force India team for the 2009 season due to the teams' shared engine supplier, Mercedes-Benz. However, Force India chose to retain Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil, with Vitantonio Liuzzi as reserve driver.^[5]

Force India (2010–)

2010

In December 2009, with Fisichella having moved to Ferrari and Liuzzi being promoted to the race team, di Resta took part in a test with the team at the Jerez circuit alongside J. R. Hildebrand.^[6] At the Autosport International show in January 2010, he was said to be close to a deal as the team's test and reserve driver for the 2010 season.^[7] The deal was duly announced on 2 February.^[8] Di Resta made his Formula One race meeting début at the 2010 Australian Grand Prix, where he took part in the first free practice session in place of Sutil^[9] and placed 11th.^[10] He drove in the first practice sessions of all the following races until Monaco Grand Prix, where he did not take part. He resumed driving for the team at the European Grand Prix and the following British Grand Prix. After sitting out the German Grand Prix he returned for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Di Resta subsequently sat out the Belgian Grand Prix as Tonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil needed as much track-time as possible to get the feeling of the new parts. He participated in practice for the Italian Grand Prix, but did not participate in the Singapore or Japanese Grands Prix. The team elected that di Resta should miss the Korean Grand Prix to allow Liuzzi and Sutil to get used to the new track for the race.^[11]

2011

Di Resta at the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix

Di Resta joined Adrian Sutil in the Force India Formula One racing team for the 2011 season, replacing Vitantonio Liuzzi. He scored his first championship point at his first race, the Australian Grand Prix, after both Saubers were disqualified.^[12] This was followed by another 10th place in Malaysia, 11th in China, and a retirement in Turkey, where he left the pits with a loose wheel. He was running fifth in Canada until a collision with Nick Heidfeld left him with a damaged car and a drive-through penalty, and later crashed out of the race on lap 67. He qualified sixth at Silverstone but finished 15th after a long pitstop due to a tyre mix-up.

His third points-scoring finish of the season came in Hungary, where he finished seventh in changeable conditions. In the Italian Grand Prix, he finished 8th, and this was followed by a career-best sixth place finish in Singapore, ahead of team-mate Sutil, who finished eighth. He finished tenth in Korea, ninth in Abu Dhabi and eighth in Brazil.

2012

Di Resta driving for Force India at the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix.

On 16 December 2011, it was announced that he was to be retained by Force India for the 2012 season, with Nico Hülkenberg taking the place of Sutil as his team mate.^[13] He qualified fifteenth for the season opener in Australia and finished tenth in the race, passing Jean-Éric Vergne and Nico Rosberg on the final lap. He qualified fourteenth for the Malaysian Grand Prix, and finished seventh in the wet race. He was twelfth in China. In Bahrain he qualified inside the top ten, having missed the second free practice session after several members of the team were caught up in a petrol bomb incident. Using a two-stop strategy he took sixth place in the race, which equalled his previous career-best result. He was fourteenth in Spain, a lap behind winner Pastor Maldonado, and seventh in Monaco having started fifteenth on the grid.

Racing record

Career summary

^† – As di Resta was a guest driver, he was ineligible to score points.
* Season in progress.

Complete Formula 3 Euro Series record

(key)

Complete DTM results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula One results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

^† Driver failed to finish the race, but was classified as they had completed >90% of the race distance.
^* Season in progress.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Paul di Resta

• Paul di Resta career statistics at Driver Database
• Official website
• Paul di Resta at the Internet Movie Database

v t e   Sahara Force India F1 Team Personnel: Vijay Mallya | Michiel Mol | Otmar Szafnauer | Andy Stevenson | Andrew Green Former personnel: Mike Gascoyne | James Key | Colin Kolles Race drivers: 11. Paul di Resta | 12. Nico Hülkenberg Test drivers: Jules Bianchi | Gary Paffett Former drivers: Giancarlo Fisichella | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Adrian Sutil Formula One cars: VJM01 | VJM02 | VJM03 | VJM04 | VJM05