Di Resta continues Force India testing in Barcelona

9 March 2011 – Paul di Resta continued the Force India F1 Team’s final pre-season  test at the Circuit de Catalunya today. The 24-year-old Scot, who makes his F1 debut  in Australia, conducted a simulation of a race weekend, beginning with qualifying runs in  the morning and moving onto a full race simulation in the afternoon, complete with live pit stops.  In total he ran 118 laps, with a best time of 1:24.334.   Paul di Resta A reasonable day of running for us today and good reliability and clear weather meant we  could get through all of our programme. In the morning I worked through the qualifying sims  and in the afternoon it was onto the race runs. I’ve done pit stops before in practice last  year but trying them in race conditions was a new experience. However they were similar  in length to what I’ve experienced in the DTM over the past four years so I think I dealt  with them OK. I’ll have a break tomorrow while Adrian takes over the car to test some new aero upgrades we’re running for the first time. I’ll get my chance to run them on  Friday and look forward to seeing how much time they will give.  Dominic Harlow, circuit engineering director Paul was back in the car today, this time for a full day of running. In a productive  outing he covered over 500km, running our standard Saturday practice and qualifying  programmes before lunch and then moving to a full race simulation in the afternoon. We also  had our full race crew here today to give them some live pit stop practice. Reliability  was good again, which allowed us to cover our primary objectives for today. Paul takes  a break tomorrow and Adrian will be in the car for the full day.   Testing data Driver: Paul di Resta Track: Circuit de Catalunya, Spain Best lap time: 1:24.334 Laps completed: 118 Kilometres completed: 549km Air temperature: High of 13 C Track temperature: High of 15 C Weather: Bright and sunny all day