The Force India duo of Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg suffered a disappointing race at Silverstone today.
The team, which is based at Silverstone itself, had been hoping for a strong performance following a competitive showing in qualifying yesterday. Unfortunately for home favourite Paul di Resta his second visit to Silverstone was over before it had almost begun after suffering a puncture on the opening lap.
Di Resta, who had started tenth was clipped by the Lotus of Romain Grosjean coming out of the loop and spun off. Subsequent damage sustained to the floor of the car on the way back to the pits meant a very early end to the Scot's race.
“I’m not really sure what happened. I just turned into turn four and there was no pressure in the right rear tyre so it was clearly punctured and coming off the rim. All I could do was bring the car back to the pits, but there was quite a lot of damage to the floor. I took some fresh tyres and went back out, but I was missing a lot of downforce and I went off the track at Becketts.
“So the team made the call to retire the car. I’m very disappointed because we took a gamble yesterday by running a dry set-up and the conditions today would have been ideal for us,” Paul said. Like Hamilton and Button, he was also quick to praise the fans.
“On a positive note I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to the fans who have put up with the weather and
shown amazing support all week.”
Team mate Hulkenberg also had a frustrating afternoon. He had qualified ninth yesterday, but a five place penalty due to a gearbox change meant he started from fourteenth, and finished twelfth in a battle that went to the end.
“It was a tough race today, especially because my car was set up to favour wet conditions. That helped us yesterday, but hurt my top speed this afternoon. There were always cars around me in the race, especially in the final few laps when I had to defend from Bruno and Jenson, and I could not afford to make any mistakes.”
“Unfortunately I locked up the rears going into turn three with two laps to go and that gave Bruno the chance to get ahead of me in the DRS zone. It’s frustrating to lose points so close to the finish but my tyres were running out of performance and the car was not easy to drive in the final stint,” he explained.
