Paul Di Resta is aiming to score points for the first time in four races after qualifying inside the top ten at Spa. The Briton will start ninth thanks to penalties ahead of him and believes he got the maximum out of his Force India today.
“I’m quite pleased with our performance today. The car had pace this morning during practice and was working well on this track where you need lots of downforce as well as efficiency. My lap in Q2 felt very good and was about the maximum that was possible. In fact, I couldn’t repeat the time in Q3 and I went a tenth slower, so that was the speed we had in the car today. With the grid penalty for Mark [Webber] I will probably start from ninth, which puts us in a great position to come away with some points tomorrow.”
Teammate Nico Hulkenberg felt he had the pace to join Di Resta in the top ten but came up short by 0.075s in Q2. Webber’s grid penalty promotes him to eleventh and he is pleased with the feeling of his car.
“I’m a little bit disappointed with the result today because I felt it was possible to make the top ten. There wasn’t as much preparation time in the dry as I would have liked, but we were in reasonable shape this morning and made some good progress with the set-up. On my final lap in Q2 I didn’t get the middle sector quite right, lost some time, and missed out on Q3. For such a long lap the times were very close today and just a tenth or two would have been enough to move up the grid.”
