Bathgate’s Paul Di Resta put a miserable german touring car Championship season behind him by dominating the latest round, the 60-minute race at Brands Hatch.
The 22-year-old Scot, who was only denied last year’s title in the final race but who had failed to even finish on the podium before today’s home round of the championship, was ecstatic after his victory.
“I think this will show a lot of people who have been critical of me this season that I still have the ability to win races and, hopefully, championships,” Di Resta, who was congratulated by his close friend, current Formula One world champ Lewis Hamilton.
“Of course things haven’t worked out my way this season, but that’s been no reflection of my ability or desire to win races. We’ve had a few technical problems and we’ve struggled in qualifying. But today everything went perfectly.”
Di Resta led from start to finish having bagged his first pole position of the year. But the Scot, who at one stage had established an apparently insurmountable six-second lead, saw it twice disappear as the safety car was deployed after two incidents.
“Yeh, that was disappointing, but that’s racing,” Di Resta continued. “I controlled both restarts and managed to re-establish my advantage and hold on to the end. Now I’d like to continue this form to the end of the season.
“For me, this was a special win, because I had many friends and my family supporting me here today. We are back, and I want to stay on the top step of the podium, because I think that is where I belong.”
Di Resta finished just 0.896secs ahead of the Audi of defending Timo Scheider. the German, who now leads this year’s title race, was half-a-second ahead of his Audi team-mate Martin Tomczyk.
And Di Resta’s first win of the season moved him to fourth in the championship, but with only three races remaining the Scot is 14 points behind leader Scheider.
JM