Di Resta gets Rocky apologyposted in DTM02 | 11 | 2010
AUDI DRIVER Mike Rockenfeller has apologised to Paul di Resta for seriously damaging the Scot's hopes of clinching the DTM Championship. The German collided with the 24-year-old's Mercedes on the opening lap of Sunday's race at Adria in Italy sending him spinning into the gravel.
"Of course I'm very sorry for Paul," Rockenfeller, whose actions contributed to Di Resta losing his three-point lead in the championship, said today. "There was no intent on my part.
"I didn't want to attack him but just defend myself from the rear. I was under a lot of pressure and I wanted to defend my line on the inside. I was driving on the inside of the kerb, and Paul came from the outside.
"He was driving his racing line but the problem was that's exactly where I was. He wasn't expecting this either. If he had been on a different line we would have been okay."
Di Resta, who will arrive in Sao Paulo tomorrow to prepare to drive the Force India F1 car in Friday's practice ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix, accepted Rockenfeller's apology but questioned the antics of Spaniard Miguel Molina.
"The incident with Mike was disappointing because it definitely ruined my race right at the start," Di Resta explained today before hopping on to his flight to South America.
"But while it was a big disappointment and it shouldn't have happened, I can understand why it did. Mike was concentrating more on what was happening behind him than in front of him; these things happen in racing.
"But what I can't understand or accept is the way Molina drove straight into me near the end of the race. That was inexcusable."
After the first-lap carnage, Di Resta had battled his way through from 16th to eighth, and with six laps remaining was closing in on the cars in sixth and seventh. But after the Scot and the Spaniard touched on the start-finish straight, Molina then rammed his Audi into Di Resta's Merc at the next corner.
"I can only think he had some sort of brain fade," Di Resta, who will enter the DTM finale in Shanghai at the end of the month three points behind new leader Bruno Spengler, continued.
"It was as if he was intent on some sort of retaliation for the contact we'd had earlier in the lap. I think he just wanted to take revenge and damage any hopes I have of lifting the championship. All I want to do is race, and race fair."
That was a view supported by Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug who hopes Di Resta and Spengler can have clean races in the finale.
"A guy who is fighting for the championship should be respected," Haug said. "I think it is important we don't have things like that at the final race in Shanghai.
"Of course everybody wants to win the race, but if the championship is decided by accidents and cars driving into other cars then it is not right."
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Jim McGill