Bathgate’s Paul di Resta kickstarted his bid to win the DTM Championship when he finished second in the latest round at the Nurburgring in Germany.
The 24-year-old Scot, who started from fourth on the grid, catapulted himself to second on the opening lap of the of the 2.2-mile track and spent the remaining 48 pressurising championship leader and Mercedes team-mate Bruno Spengler.
“Yeh, I’m happy with that,” Di Resta, who backed off over the closing few laps before finishing 2.843secs behind the Canadian, admitted today. “The first half of the season has been frustrating with various things, but now we’re flying.
“The guys have worked seriously hard developing the car during the mid-season break and we got quicker and quicker with every session this weekend.
“I pressurised Bruno as much as I could in the first three-quarters of the race trying to force him into a mistake, but after we’d both completed our two compulsory pitstops I backed off to ensure we had a 1-2 finish.”
Just to round off a prefect day for Mercedes, former champ Gary Paffett finished third to lockout the top three podium places for Mercedes.
Di Resta heads to the next round of the championship at Zandvoort in Holland in two weeks having moved to third in the title race, 17 points behind Spengler and just one behind England’s Jamie Green in second.
JM