Force India Wants Di Resta to Put Pressure on Race Drivers

Paul di Resta already impressed the guys at Force India with his great pace during the Jerez testing this week, as the Scottish driver was handed an extra half a day of action on the Spanish track on Thursday. While initially scheduled to do only the morning session of the Wednesday meeting, the Scot jumped inside the VJM03 for some additional laps yesterday.

While the official explanation of the Force India team was that Di Resta was given this opportunity in order to schedule the race drivers for a drier track in the afternoon, the move is also considered to be a way of putting some pressure on the team's race drivers Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi for the upcoming season.

Additionally, the team already confirmed that Di Resta will drive the VJM03 during selected Fridays of the 2010 grands prix in 2010.

“Internal competition is good. We will benefit from this situation,” revealed Force India's chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer, according to Germany's Auto Motor und Sport.

Di Resta's lap times yesterday were quite impressive, as he finished the day higher in the scoring reports than Force India's race driver for next season Vitantonio Liuzzi. The Italian ended the day with the 9th best time of the day, two places behind the Scot.

“I ran with the intermediate and wet tyres over the morning, which at least means I have got some solid experience of wet running and it won't be such a novelty when I am faced with similar conditions in places such as Malaysia,” said Di Resta after the testing session.

Adrian Sutil is schedule to resume testing in the VJM03 on Friday, while Liuzzi will again take on the last day of Jerez action, on Saturday.