Can di Resta Kick On in 2012?

The 2011 season saw a great start to Paul di Resta’s F1 career, finishing the year as the highest placed rookie. He came into Formula 1 with a big reputation, having beaten Vettel when they were team mates in Formula 3, taken the DTM championship in 2010 (against several former F1 drivers) and received the backing of Mercedes, who don’t offer their support to whoever knocks on their big silver door. So, the question is, can di Resta deliver further on his promise and become a regular on the grid and even in the points or the podium? Well, it won’t be easy…

His Force India team mate Adrian Sutil actually finished ahead of di Resta in last year’s championship by a relatively comfortable fifteen points, in spite of finishing fewer races than him. However, whereas Sutil looked like a solid performer for a good portion of the year, di Resta looked solid with flashes of brilliance, in particular qualifying at Silverstone where he hauled the Force India onto the third row of the grid. It was probably moments like this that ended Sutil’s time with the team.

For 2012, Nico Hulkenberg takes Sutil’s seat. Hulkenberg will not be an easy team mate for di Resta – he came into F1 following a stellar junior career and up until he landed a drive in a Williams for his debut season in 2010, he was a man to watch. Most of his first season was littered with errors and went by without much sign of the rumoured genius in his driving until the penultimate round in Brazil where he snatched a brilliant pole position. Without a drive lined up for 2011 he took a test driving role at Force India where in the Friday practice sessions showed he had a great turn of speed, guaranteeing his race seat for 2012.

So how will these two compare? Hulkenberg showed plenty of rough edges in need of polishing out in the Williams, but a year on the sidelines honing his skills in practice sessions and having time to think about things may have been enough polish these edges out. He’s likely to be a little race-rusty but his naturally aggressive style will soon shine through. Plus he’s obviously very hungry for it.

For di Resta, things will be quite different. He probably won’t be on as steep a learning curve as his team mate, but often in F1, the second season for a driver turns out to be hard work. To a certain extent the excitement of arriving in the sport on a crest of a wave disappears and it all becomes more of a chore. Teams seem to handle their drivers differently in the second season – there’s a sense of a driver being expected to lead the team a little more rather than just following and it’ll be interesting to see how he steps up to the mark.

I actually think they’ll be closely matched and an exciting pair to keep an eye on. They both have bundles of potential and are quite different characters. I’d give the edge to di Resta at the moment – he’s smart, he’s race ready and he’s fast enough, but I may change my mind again after the first race!

As for how he’ll do in relation to the rest of the grid, as ever it depends on the car. On the basis that he’s been with the team for a couple of seasons as test and race driver, di Resta should be in a strong position and will have hopefully nudged the car in his direction for this year. Force India are a good outfit and have recently been turning out tidy midfield cars. The trouble with the midfield though, is that lots of people are in it. This puts you on the same piece of track as the Kobayashis and Maldonados and others who tend to spend quite a lot of time parked in other people’s diffusers, which isn’t great for performance.

The Force India has been running very well in the notoriously misleading pre-season testing, which bodes very well for di Resta’s year and they look like they may just start to hoist themselves out of the midfield. If di Resta can keep on top of himself as he did last year and get ahead of Hulkenberg it really could be the start of something great for another British F1 driver – especially if Schumacher re-retires this year. If I were to stick my neck out, I’d say di Resta will finish around eighth in the championship with a Mercedes contract in his pocket for 2013. Should be fun reading this again at the end of the season…

Author: Stuart McCann