Second fuels Di Resta’s title charge

A fortnight after his second place at the Nurburgring, Paul di Resta continued his consistent race performance by finishing second again at Zandvoort in Holland, this time behind his fellow Mercedes driver Gary Paffett.

The result means Di Resta has closed the gap on championship leader Bruno Spengler to just 11 points; the Canadian Mercedes driver finished seventh in the race, 20.886secs behind Paffett.

“That was another good race for me and Mercedes,” explained Paul, who started third on the grid behind Gary and polesitter, Audi driver Timo Scheider. “Timo stalled at the start and Gary and I were able to get past him right away.

“After that it was case of the two of us pulling away and extending the gap over the rest of the field. I came close to getting ahead of Gary a couple of times, but in the end didn’t manage.

“Still, second’s a really good result for me as far as the championship’s concerned, and it was excellent to get another 1-2 for Mercedes. I’ve closed the gap significantly on Bruno, so the battle for the title is wide open again.

“We’ve five races left and the next round is Brands Hatch, where I won last year, so I’ll be hoping to repeat that success again in front of my home fans. Before that though I’m on Formula One duty this weekend when I head to Spa with Force India for the Belgian Grand Prix.”

While Scheider recovered to finish a third, with the help of some generous Audi team-mates, he was a distant 12.238s behind Paffett. The Englishman though was hounded by Paul right to the chequered flag; the gap between the two at the end was a slender 0.396s.

JM

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