Paul
Di Resta

Paul di Resta was born on 16 April 1986 in Uphall, Scotland, and grew up in Bathgate. He raced karts from 1994 to 2002 and won the British JICA Championship in 2001. At the end of 2002 he moved into Formula Renault, and in 2004 he finished third in the British championship with four wins. In 2005 he joined the Formula 3 Euro Series with Manor Motorsport and ended the year tenth. In 2006 he took the title with ASM, winning five races and beating his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, a future Formula One world champion.

In 2007 di Resta switched to the DTM with Mercedes and finished fifth. In 2008 he won two races and was runner-up, four points behind Timo Scheider. He was third in 2009, and in 2010 he won three races in a row on the way to the championship.

In Formula One, di Resta was Force India's test and reserve driver in 2010 and drove in a number of free practice sessions. He became a full-time race driver alongside Adrian Sutil in 2011. He scored in his first race, finishing tenth in Australia after both Saubers were disqualified, and he took sixth in Singapore, ending the year 13th in the standings. In 2012 his team-mate was Nico Hülkenberg. He finished fourth in Singapore and was 14th overall. In 2013 he equalled that result with fourth in Bahrain and took seventh in Canada after an unusually long opening stint. Twelfth in the championship that year was his best final position. Force India did not keep him for 2014.

From 2014 di Resta was back in the DTM, first with HWA. In 2018 he won three races and finished third overall, and in 2019 he raced an Aston Martin for R-Motorsport. He was a reserve driver for Williams from 2016 and stood in for Felipe Massa at the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix, qualifying 19th and retiring after 60 laps. In Formula One he made 59 starts in total, without reaching the podium. From 2020 to 2022 he was a reserve driver for McLaren. In endurance racing he won the 2018-19 Asian Le Mans Series with United Autosports and the LMP2 class at the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing fifth overall. In 2022 he drove for Peugeot in the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship. From 2016 to 2023 he also worked as a co-commentator and analyst for Sky Sports F1.

Source: Wikipedia, “Paul di Resta”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.