F1 testing: Paul di Resta pleased with fourth best time

Sahara Force India's Paul di Resta registered an impressive performance in the testing session here and had the fourth best time overall, in his new VJM 06.

The Scottish racing driver completed 89 laps and had a fastest lap time of 1:20:343. "A positive first day and we managed to cover lots of laps - so that's the most important thing. I felt very comfortable all day and we managed to get through the program as we focussed on collecting aero data and understanding how well the car correlates with our simulation tools at the factory," he said.

While he had finished 14th last year, his team has big plans from di Resta and think the new car can help deliver better results. "Chief Operating Officer, Otmar Szafnauer had praised the team's efforts during the launch last week. "We're very optimistic. We've been working hard over the winter, trying to make improvements where we know we can find performance. Everything has come together very nicely," he had said.

On Tuesday, it was Chief Race Engineer Jakob Andreasen's turn to praise the efforts put in. "As first days go, we are pretty satisfied with how things went today. From the install lap onwards we managed to keep to the programme, even with the disruptions for the red flags."