Paul di Resta

About

Paul di Resta is a British racing driver from Scotland.

He drove in Formula One for Force India from 2011 to 2013, and became a reserve driver for the Williams F1 team in 2016, driving a single race for them as a substitute driver in 2017.

He stepped up to single-seaters at the end of 2002, when he competed in the British Formula Renault Winter Series. He raced in British Formula Renault full-time in 2003 with the Eurotek Motorsport team, finishing seventh in the standings with one race win. He switched to Manor Motorsport for 2004, finishing third in the championship standings with four wins. He also entered some races of Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 with the Manor team. He also won the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of The Year Award in 2004. The award had been won by his cousin Dario Franchitti in 1992.

Formula One

Di Resta tested for the McLaren Formula One team, and was in the frame for a drive with the Force India team for the 2009 season due to the teams’ shared engine supplier, Mercedes-Benz. However, Force India chose to retain Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil, with Vitantonio Liuzzi as reserve driver.

Di Resta joined Adrian Sutil in the Force India Formula One racing team for the 2011 season, replacing Vitantonio Liuzzi. He scored his first championship point at his first race, the Australian Grand Prix, after both Saubers were disqualified.

In 2016, after a two-year absence from the sport, di Resta returned to Formula One as reserve driver for Williams.

Williams retained di Resta as their reserve driver for 2017 whilst he competed for Mercedes in DTM.

He replaced lead driver Felipe Massa for qualifying and the race at the Hungarian Grand Prix as the Brazilian recovered from an illness. This marked di Resta’s first F1 start in almost four years, whilst also becoming the first British driver for Williams since Jenson Button in 2000 and Scottish driver since David Coulthard in 1995. His qualifying results were described as an “unbelievable job” by Mercedes F1 Director Toto Wolff, having competed without having driven the FW40 prior to the session.

Broadcasting

Since 2016, Di Resta has been a regular contributor to the Sky Sports F1 channel. He is a common presence as a co-commentator, analyst and one of the insiders in “Sky Race Control” during practices, qualifying sessions and races, alongside Jenson Button, Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Damon Hill, Nico Rosberg, and Johnny Herbert.