Frustrated Di Resta promoted to fifth

Bathgate’s Paul di Resta found himself promoted from sixth, to fifth, hours after the chequered flag fell at the second round of the DTM Championship in Valencia.

German ace Martin Tomczyk had originally finished the 45-lap race in second place, just  0.435s behind his Audi team-mate Mattias Ekstrom. But Tomczyk was later excluded after stewards identified his car had used a tyre which was not part of his race allocation.

While the German was left incensed, the error has been put down to a simple mistake by his Audi team. Di Resta meanwhile was happy to accept the promotion, but was still frustrated by his performance.

“It was a pretty frustrating race, to be honest,” the 24-year-old Mercedes driver, back on DTM duty after back-to-back Formula One outings as reserve driver with Force India at Barcelona and Monaco, admitted today.

“We had a fast race car today but we never really managed to get out of the traffic after our pitstops, and that was frustrating. I really felt i had a car today which was capable of at least a podium finish.”

Di Resta, who now heads to Istanbul, where he will drive the Force India F1 car on Friday ahead of the Turkish Grand Prix, backed off towards the end of the race to eventually finish  8.639secs behind winner, Ekstrom.

The revised results elevated Di Resta’s Canadian team-mate Bruno Spengler to second place, with Frenchman Alexandre Premat completing the podium in his 2008-spec Audi.

Former F1 grand prix winner David Coulthard, who started the race 14th, was forced to retire his 2008-spec Mercedes just seven laps from the finish, the same lap which saw England’s Oliver Jarvis retire his Audi from third place.

Di Resta now heads to the third round at the Lausitzring in 12 days fourth in the championship, seven points adrift of leader Spengler, and only three behind third-placed Gary Paffett.

JM

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