Paul di Resta hails perfect day after his third Brands Hatch victory

Paul di Resta has called today a perfect day after taking victory in the second race of the weekend at the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit, holding off championship leader Gary Paffett to take his second win of the season, a day in stark contrast to his results from Saturday where he finished 16th.

The HWA Mercedes-AMG driver just missed pole position after a late improvement from Paffett, but the 32-year-old made a perfect start from the outside of the front row to drive side-by-side with Paffett through Paddock Hill and Druids and emerge in the lead heading into Graham Hill bend.

“It is a perfect day, but not a perfect weekend,” said di Resta after the race. “On home soil there are a lot of friends and family to support us, which is added pressure.

“We were surprisingly off the pace yesterday, but my engineers identified something that was wrong; we changed one part on the car and that totally transformed it. It’s the small margins in DTM that make the difference, I thought we could have been on pole, but a small mistake and some dirt on the track on my fast lap.

“I crucially was able to make a good start as I did yesterday, and that was the deciding factor in the race, and from thereon in it was just about managing it to the end to get the job done.”

Di Resta now trails Paffett by 29 points heading to the next round of the championship in two weeks’ time at Misano, Italy.