Paul di Resta: “I’m going to have to up my game”

Former F1 driver and DTM returnee Paul di Resta believes he will have to up his game to get on terms with his Mercedes DTM team-mates.

Mercedes endured a tough start to their 2014 DTM campaign, with none of its six-car squad managing to score points at the Hockenheim DTM opener.

di Resta, who won the 2010 DTM title with Mercedes, qualified 18th on his DTM return after three seasons in Formula 1 with Force India. The Scot then finished 14th in the race behind HWA Mercedes team-mates Gary Paffett in 12th, and Pascal Wehrlein who finished the race as the best of the Mercedes drivers in 11th.

“I’m going to have to up my game in order to slot back into the DTM on a par with my team-mates,” said di Resta post-race. “That was a difficult race.”

di Resta also inferred he is unsure whether Mercedes will be able to turn its poor Hockenheim form around before the next race at Oschersleben which takes place in two weeks time.

“We [Mercedes] need to improve as manufacturers [because] we’re somewhat down compared to BMW and Audi.

“We’ve now got two weeks in which to recover and then make the best of it.”

Mercedes’ head of DTM, Wolfgang Schattling, echoed di Resta’s comments but added he felt the manufacturer deserved a better result due to the work it put in over the winter.

“Our performance level was by no means where it should be,” said Schattling. “It just wasn’t right.”

“We now have a fortnight in which to considerably improve our performance before the next race – that’s not much time and it won’t be an easy task.

“Our team has worked hard over the winter and certainly deserved a better result today.”