Tourist route gives Paul di Resta right grounding for F1's hard road

When Robert Frost wrote his famous poem about the road not taken, the old petrolhead might have been predicting the diverging careers of Paul di Resta and Sebastian Vettel. When Di Resta, the third British driver in the Formula One line-up when the season starts here on Sunday, won the 2006 Formula Three Euroseries championship Vettel was among the drivers he defeated. While Vettel headed in the direction of F1 Di Resta went into touring cars and last year won the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters at the fourth attempt. But Di Resta, who will be 25 next month, was being talked about in motor sport before that. In 2004 he won the McLaren Autosport young driver award, which gave him a test in the McLaren F1 car. He knows all about testing, for he drove the Force India car on eight Fridays last year and so impressed the team that he was given a proper gig this season, alongside Adrian Sutil. Even if the Force India car is not at the front of the grid Di Resta's battle with his experienced German team-mate should be an event in itself. Di Resta is a cousin of the Indy Car champion Dario Franchitti and his father, Louis, raced in Formula Ford, so no one can question his pedigree. Di Resta raced karts for eight years before moving into Formula Renault as a 17-year-old. It was here that he competed against Lewis Hamilton. He moved up to F3 in 2005, so he has served a thorough apprenticeship. He does not envy the faster track to the top taken by Hamilton and Vettel. "OK, they've won world championships but I've achieved what I wanted to achieve. And I'm not sure I would have wanted to be a Formula One driver at 19. I had four good years in touring cars. I'll look back and say I definitely enjoyed them. I don't regret it." Last year Force India, the old Jordan team, proved to be a solid midfield outfit. But performances dipped towards the end and there are question marks about the car this season following the departure of the technical director James Key to Sauber and Mark Smith, his successor, to Lotus. But Di Resta is unlikely to disappoint. Everyone knows how good he is and Vettel was impressed all over again when he followed him round the test circuit in Barcelona this month. Di Resta does not appear to have fretted over whether he would get a chance at F1. "I was confident in a sense but in other ways I never really knew what would happen because it is quite a tricky business to get your head around," he said. "There are different sides to it than what you saw. I'm a driver but there's also a commercial market as well. There was talk of the team taking a pay driver. You question it in your head but you take it from the horse's mouth and you have to be confident that's where it's going. So I can say now it's been a progression I definitely worked hard to try and do. "That was one of the things when I first went into Force India. With their plans they set down in front of me, I did see a natural progression. It was definitely a good route to getting a race drive. Happily it has all paid off and they've delivered on what they've said they are going to deliver on. "Equally I was able to deliver in terms of driving the car last year, the press work, testing and simulator work." Di Resta should not suffer because he has come into Formula One via DTM and not the more traditional GP2 route. As there are two pit-stops in DTM, it may be a more appropriate preparation for the new F1 season when the Pirelli tyres, with their faster wear and degradation, will see drivers making two and even three stops. "The DTM is a massively underrated championship," he said. "It gives the driver a great grounding. The cars also have a lot of downforce, which again should be a big help in Formula One. "I know it is going to be difficult. The workload is going to increase for me this year with so many grands prix, a lot of racing compared to what I am used to in a year. "I don't think time-wise it's going to be as bad but on the brain it is going to be much more demanding. For the guys who are leading the race, they are probably driving at 90% at the end of it, whereas the guys in the midfield are battling for that last little bit, trying to squeeze everything out. They emerge from the car with sweat pouring out. "But this is my chance and I am determined to give it my all and show what I can do."