Paul di Resta: “They’ve moved the goal posts for everyone”

Mercedes-AMG driver Paul di Resta finished second in race two at the Nürburgring to bounce back from a troublesome race one and keep up with team-mate Gary Paffett in the championship, with the Scot now two points adrift in the DTM standings.

The hot topic of the weekend was the new rule about a minimum tyre pressure, introduced because of safety concerns from series’ tyre partner Hankook.

Di Resta believes the change in the ruling so late into the season has been unfair for the teams.

“It’s been quite tough, as they’ve changed the goal posts from what everybody set themselves for during winter,” di Resta told TouringCarTimes. “But we don’t make the decisions and we have to live with it. I don’t know what they expected us to do with it, because the rule didn’t come out until after FP1 on Saturday morning. So we come to the weekend not knowing what’s going to happen. We prepare the car all year and now it’s all changed.”

The 32-year old was also unable to evaluate whether running under the new rule caused more tyre degradation than before.

“We’ve got no comparison to what would have been if we had the other tyre pressure,” he said. “All we can think is that we had prepared ourselves and got on top of the tyres and now it’s all changed, it could even change again before Spielberg. It’s what it is, everybody has the same, but all I can say is that I’m not a big fan of it.”

Di Resta is also unfazed by the challenges ahead, as he heads to the two final events of the season just two points behind Paffett.

“There are many corners left in the season, there are still four hours of racing to come up,” he said. “There can be tricky conditions in Spielberg and Hockenheim, as October is never straight forward. But as I was taken out yesterday it can happen to anyone.”

Nobody was indifferent to Audi’s Rene Rast’s success this weekend, which has catapulted the reigning champion to third in the championship. Di Resta is not particularly concerned with potentially having another driver in the fight for the title.

“There are three manufacturers fighting for this and I guess everyone is going to give it all they’ve got,” he said. “Today with all that went on we went flat out at the lights and now we are still two points behind Gary.

“I’ve seen many tactics in DTM over the years, it’s never straight forward, but you’ve got to be in the fight to be ‘in the fight’. If I need to get my elbows out I will, but there is an element of that in the championship and that’s a big part of it.”