Paul Di Resta Q&A Post Hungarian GP : 'The team are pushing harder'

Paul, you’ve had some frustrating races recently – how relieved are you to finally have a great result?
“I think it was important. After several races where things were out of my control, it feels great to score some good points. It’s nice to have a race where everything goes well. We’re chasing people in the constructors’ championship and given the result in Hungary, and the result the previous weekend for Adrian, it’s been a massive couple of weeks for us. The team are pushing hard and it’s nice to get two good results going into the August break. We will recharge our batteries and come back fighting.”

There were a few incidents on a busy first lap and you passed both Adrian and Sergio Perez – tell us about that…
“I just passed them; I think they went off behind me. After that I was able to pull away from Kobayashi, which was encouraging. It was important to get a good first stint in and we did that. Maybe we didn’t make the right call for the middle stint on the supersoft tyres, but through the last stint I managed to pass five cars I think and we showed our true pace.”

Was it satisfying to beat Mercedes fair and square?
“In the second stint I was fighting with Rosberg and he maybe had a better tyre choice. But in the end he stopped for wets. The team had called me in, but I was staying out because there wasn’t that much rain.”

You’ve showed your pace in the wet in Montreal and Silverstone but didn’t get a result. Does that make this even more satisfying?

“It does. I’ve lost a lot of valuable points, so we’ll take it. As I said, it will be nice now to have a bit of time to chill out and do some training. Also, the team need a bit of relaxation more than anybody because they’ve been flat out.”

The next race after the break is Spa - any thoughts on the team’s form there?
“I’ve only been there in F3 about seven years ago. I’m not predicting anything. All I can say is the team have had good success there in the past!”