Paul di Resta’s win brings title battle to closest point so far

Paul di Resta scored an important third victory of the season at Misano which, together with fellow HWA Mercedes-AMG driver Gary Paffett’s retirement, has brought the fight for the title to its closest point so far this season. Di Resta highlighted the changing conditions as the main challenge today, also remembering former team-mate Robert Wickens who was injured after a heavy Indycar crash last week.

“Honestly, you couldn’t have hoped for better in terms of the championship,” said the HWA driver. “Of course, you want to do it on merit and, in qualifying, we did that. It was on the wet and I was pretty confident.”

The situation changed for the race, with the rain stopping and drivers facing changable conditions. Di Resta, Paffett and team-mate Edoardo Mortara started on wet tyres, but changed to slicks.

“It’s always difficult when there are tricky conditions and it’s going from wet to dry,” added di Resta. “You are the first reference and my side of the grid wasn’t the best either. I managed to get a reasonable start and make it from there, but then the Indycar restart was difficult as one side was dry and the other was wet, so some people can take more risks.

“I was passed by (BMW’s) Eng after I had passed him at the restart. I was able to later close to him and, from then, it was a question of taking the car to the end, as Gary was out. But these tyres work in a small window and you can see that Audi were in an optimum range towards the end,” added the 32-year-old.

Despite bringing the gap in the championship down to just one point, di Resta refuses to lower his guard and has a clear target for tomorrow: “Tomorrow is another day, conditions are tricky as it will rain and then dry out again. I could be confident but won’t sleep, getting back to back wins in DTM at this point of the championship is key.”

Di Resta also paid tribute to former team-mate Robert Wickens, who suffered serious injuries after a heavy crash in Indycar last week: “I think there is one guy we should mention: there is Robert (Wickens) who had that crash last week in Indycar and he has been very much in our thoughts as he was a member of our team. He’s got a hard battle at the moment and that has brought a lot of thoughts. We are here all doing what we love, our job, but the important thing is that he’s back strong.”

Mercedes-AMG DTM boss Ulrich Fritz was glad for the victory and placing two cars on the podium, but was also equally concerned about losing half of his cars due to incidents: “Congratulations to Paul on the deserved victory! The conditions were extremely difficult today. At the start of the race it was still pretty wet, apart from being dark and a track the guys had never driven before. We knew that a lot could happen. As much as we are happy with the victory and Edo’s podium, the race also leaves us mixed feelings. We lost three cars, plus Gary, who was in an excellent position. This, of course, is extremely bad.”