• Bahrain Grand Prix - Qualifying

Bitter-sweet result for di Resta

Paul di Resta qualified in seventh place but will start in fifth © Sutton Images

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• Report:
• Rosberg makes it back-to-back poles for Mercedes
  

• Race:
• Bahrain Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Paul di Resta

• Teams:
• Racing Point

Paul di Resta was pleased to secure fifth on the Bahrain Grand Prix grid but felt his car was capable of more having initially qualified seventh.

Grid penalties for Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton move di Resta up two places on the grid from after he set the seventh fastest time, leaving only Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel and the two Ferraris ahead of him. However, while di Resta is pleased with his grid slot he felt he was in a very strong position going in to the final part of qualifying.

"Starting where we are is obviously great but we were looking quite rosy at one point in the session and as the track's gripped up we've just not really got much performance," di Resta said. "We went in to Q3 with only three other cars in the same position in terms of tyres and probably didn't get what we could out of it. The car got quite difficult but we'll take where we are and our race performance yesterday was very strong in the long run, so we can be hopeful that we can certainly challenge for some good points I think tomorrow."

At one stage in qualifying di Resta came over the radio to complain about a lack of messages, and he said it was an issue that needed rectifying by the start of the race.

"I've been having some issues with the radio this weekend and it's quite important in qualifying not to get in anyone's way to pick up penalties. When they're telling you stuff and you've been saying all weekend it's not working obviously it gets a bit heated. It's a crucial point but we need to fix it for tomorrow because it could be down to that with strategy and stuff, but we'll take the positives from today and that's that we're starting well in Q3 which is what we aimed for."

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