08 Sep 2012

Paul Di Resta enjoyed the best qualifying session of his career in Italy, taking fifth place in Q1 and third in Q2 before finishing the crucial final session in an excellent fourth place. Alas, the Sahara Force India driver will have a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change prior to Saturday morning’s FP3 session, so he tumbles back to ninth on the final grid. Here he gives his thoughts on a day of mixed emotions.

Fourth in qualifying, but a five-place penalty. A bitter sweet day for you?
“I think you’ve got to give the guys credit. We obviously had a good simulator session and came here with a good baseline. I think each time we went on track we just slowly dialled it in and we ran in the top four all of qualifying. And that shows the speed was there throughout the whole day. It’s unfortunate to start ninth with the grid penalty, but at least we’re starting in the points.”

What was it like to have a front running car in qualifying all the way through?
“What was nice about it was each time we went out on track we were able to keep on improving, improving and improving, and do something about it. Even in Q1 it was quite strange how long the session was. We went out, did a run, and came in in P4. And we said, ‘OK we’re confident we’re going to get through, so let’s sit in the garage.’ It was nice to go out and do two runs in Q2 as opposed to one. The nice thing is that not everybody went quicker in Q3, and we managed to, although it was only half a tenth. Half a tenth is enough, and I knew if I could repeat the lap time we’d probably be in the top five.”

Was your speed more to do with the Monza package, or can you see it carrying through for the rest of the season?
“It’s more a Monza package, I would say. But you can’t take away where other people are – and we’re in front of Red Bull – and we’ve done that two races in a row. We’re in front of Lotus. I’d like to see it continue. I’m certainly hoping that Singapore is going to be a good track, because it was very good to us last year. We’re not underestimating what we can do there. It’s very much like Valencia was, and that was probably the strongest race we’ve had all year.”

Any thoughts on the race?
“We’ve certainly got to try and pick up on a missed opportunity in Spa. The speed is there. I just hope we can do it on high fuel, because we have been at a slight disadvantage to people round about us at that point in the race.”

How optimistic are you about making up some of the places you’ve lost?
“The first corner is obviously the focal point, getting through that. A good launch is what you need. We’ll take it step by step. It’s obviously not won at the beginning of the race, it’s won at the end. Monza is normally very hard on the cars and it will certainly be hard on the tyres with the heat and the track temperature.”

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