Di Resta to debut Friday role in Melbourne

Paul di Resta will kick off his season as Force India’s Friday driver in Melbourne late next week.

The Scottish rookie has been signed not only as the Silverstone based team’s full time reserve driver, he will also take over one of the race driver’s cockpits for the 90 minute Friday sessions at most grands prix this year.

But for the season opener last weekend, the team elected to keep Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi at the wheel of the two VJM03s due to the change of layout.

23-year-old di Resta, however, still attended the Bahrain event.

“It’s been new,” said the DTM driver.  “I’ve only ever come to races as a spectator and not been involved with the team.

“I was involved in a lot of team meetings, watching how the formula one environment works and watching how the team operates on a race weekend and also taking part in as much as possible to try and build up a relationship with the team for the future,” he added.

It is understood that if Sutil moves aside for di Resta in Friday’s morning session in Australia, it will then be Liuzzi’s turn to give up his cockpit a week later in Malaysia.

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