Paul Di Resta
Like most of his professional colleagues, this Scotsman, who was born in Uphall in West Lothian, started his career in karting in 1994, gaining extensive experience and crowning his involvement with the British Championship at the end of the 2001 season. In 2002, he entered formula racing and finished twelfth in the Formula Renault Winter Series. He finished the regular British Formula Renault in seventh place overall in his debut year in 2003. One year later, Di Resta took the title. In quick succession, the 19-year-old Scot entered the Formula 3 Euro Series in 2005, where he also secured the championship the following year ahead of Sebastian Vettel.
Di Resta ventured into unfamiliar territory in 2007 and signed up for the German Touring Car Masters, where he was provided with a two-year-old AMG-Mercedes C-Class DTM as his entry car at Team Persson Motorsport. The Scotsman found his feet in the touring car straight away and placed a sensational fifth in the final standings.
This performance was not without consequences, and so Di Resta started the following year for HWA in a brand new C-Class DTM, with which he challenged the established stars. The end result was runner-up in the DTM, as the fastest Mercedes-Benz driver and only four points behind the champion.
In 2009, Di Resta remained under contract with HWA, continued to put pressure on his rivals and finished the season in third place in the drivers' standings. In the following year, the DTM was dominated by the AMG Mercedes C-Class. Di Resta knew how to make the best use of his car's qualities and took the longed-for title ahead of his brand colleagues Gary Paffett and Bruno Spengler.
Incidentally, during the 2010 season the Scot already held a test driver contract with the Force India Formula 1 team, which was equipped with racing engines from Mercedes-Benz. After winning the title, Di Resta ended his DTM activities and completed his first Formula 1 season with Team Force India. He respectably earned 27 championship points, but was clearly beaten by his more experienced team-mate Adrian Sutil in the team-internal duel. Nothing changed in this constellation the following year, when Di Resta had to deal with the even stronger Nico Hülkenberg.
In 2013, the Scot completed his third Formula One season with Force India and was able to beat his team-mate, in this case the returning Adrian Sutil, for the first time during the season. As the team was nevertheless treading water in the Formula 1 field, Di Resta lost his cockpit at the end of the season and, in the absence of other offers in the premier class, returned to the fold of the DTM at the start of the 2014 season.
At HWA, he got the opportunity to drive an AMG Mercedes C-Coupé DTM, but still struggled in his comeback season and only finished 15th overall. In 2015, however, the Scot regained his old strength and catapulted his Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM back up to eighth place in the drivers' standings. 2016 went even better: Di Resta finished the DTM season as the second-best Mercedes-Benz driver in fifth position in the final standings.
The following year, however, the highly talented Scot suffered a setback. After a promising first third of the season at the wheel of the C 63 DTM entered by HWA, in which he managed a race win at the Hungaroring in addition to several top ten finishes, he achieved no further top results at the remaining six DTM weekends apart from two second places at the Nürburgring and three finishes in the top ten. Di Resta slipped to 11th position in the final drivers' standings.
Even his commitment as a substitute driver in the Formula 1 team Williams Martini Racing, which complements the DTM, could not compensate for the disappointing course of the season: Although he took part in the Hungarian Grand Prix as a substitute for the regular driver Felipe Massa, who was ill, Di Resta did not finish.
After completing his substitute driver role in Formula 1, the Scot concentrated almost entirely on the DTM again in 2018. Still driving the C 63 DTM, Di Resta catapulted to third place in the overall drivers' standings with three race wins, two second and one third place as well as 12 top ten finishes. DTM champion for the 2018 season was his team and brand colleague Gary Paffett.
Di Resta also took on the challenge of endurance racing twice this year, competing in an LMP2 category car in the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The only countable result was fifth place in the classic in Florida. In order to keep up the momentum after the provisional end of Mercedes-Benz's DTM involvement, Di Resta spent the winter of 2018/19 in Asia, where he competed – also in an LMP2 car – in the Asian Le Mans Series, where he led the drivers' standings after three of four races with one victory and one second place.
The Scot returned to the DTM for the 2019 season, driving an Aston Martin Vantage DTM entered by HWA after just 90 days in development and construction. In the end, however, it was only enough for 16th place with four races in the points. Following Aston Martin's DTM retirement, di Resta dedicated himself to the FIA Endurance Championship, where he recorded upper-midfield finishes, including a class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2020.