Friday, March 25, 2011

Lot of pressure on Rookie Paul Di Resta

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There is a lot of Pressure on the young Rookie Driver Paul Di Resta of Force India F1 who will be among the 4 newcomers to the F1 grid.

Paul Di Resta's job would be to demonstrate that he can successfully complete the transition from flourishing in DTM to excelling in the high-octane realm of F1.

Few people doubt that he lacks the gifts to succeed, but Di Resta must be hoping his Force India employers can supply him with a vehicle which ensures he isn't scrabbling around in 13th or 14th place for the next eight months.

To date, the signs aren't hugely promising. Force India have ambitions to be among the leading six teams in this year's battle, but they were significantly off the pace in pre-season testing and the suspicion has to be that they will be struggling to live with the likes of Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren, despite the latter team's well-documented problems in the build-up to Oz.

In short, Di Resta and his more experienced German team mate, Adrian Sutil, may be forced to dig deep to extract every second of potential from their VJM04s for the forseeable future. At best, they should be reliable, and Di Resta has already proved in other forms of motor sport that he possesses the rare knack of conjuring up good results in unpromising scenarios.

But he realises that he can't afford to waste any time finding his feet in F1; on the contrary, with the redoubtable Nico Hulkenberg waiting in the wings as Force India's test and reserve driver, both Di Resta and Sutil will be under pressure to deliver positive results - or else!

The Scottish driver objective is clear enough. First, he has to finish higher than Sutil on a regular basis by combining pragmatism and pace in the early races. Then he has to chase the top-10 finishes which would start earning him points on the Grand Prix stage. Anything better is unrealistic at the moment, and although there may be afternoons where the Red Bulls crash into each other or the McLarens splutter out of contention.

Thus far, they have never enjoyed a Grand Prix win and, despite Di Resta's recruitment, we shouldn't anticipate that situation changing in 2011 either.

Di Resta said: "We'd like to be a bit further on than we are. It's going to be hard work, certainly at the beginning, but it's the job at hand. That is the way Formula One is."

He added: "The car is definitely not quite there yet. We are improving, which is the main thing, but we'd like to be that bit quicker.

"We're not too far away. It's a case of going through it thoroughly and understanding it to make sure what is going back to the factory is the right information because that is when you see big steps.

"I'm sure everybody is in the same position. You just have to make sure you're in a position where you can jump on it.

"In terms of race distance and reliability, it has been fantastic so far. That's definitely been one positive.

"So it's about the finer details and extracting the performance, which means we've got a fight on our hands."

Scot Paul Di Resta along with Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado at Williams, Mexican Sergio Perez with Sauber and Belgian Jerome D'Ambrosio at Virgin Racing are the 4 newcomers who are fighting to their mark in F1.

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