Force-India driver Paul di Resta says ‘flying marbles’ in Malaysian Grand Prix hurt him – Formula 1
Force-India driver Paul di Resta has said that he was hit many times by the ‘flying marbles’ during the Malaysian Grand Prix in which he could only gather one point.
By ‘flying marbles,’ di Resta was referring to the little chunks of rubber coming off the cars’ Pirelli tyres.
Throughout the Malaysian Grand Prix, a large amount of little pieces of rubber built up off the racing line at the Sepang circuit kept flying towards the drivers.
It was believed that since the drivers would have to drive over these chunks, their cars might slip a lot and they might lose grip of their cars. However, that was not the case and Paul di Resta said that these flying chunks did nothing but ‘hurt him.’
“Come the end of the race, it gets difficult to overtake. The other big thing is that they kept coming up and hitting me in the hands. In the middle of a fast corner, these lumps of rubber would be smacking into my hands as I turned the wheel,” said Paul.
After this statement, Pirelli motorsports director Paul Hembery said that if other drivers are facing this problem as well, then it is going to be quite difficult for the new tyre developers to solve it.
Hembery stated that it was for the first time that any driver has complained about the problem.
“I have not had those comments from the top three [finishers] but if it's an issue, we will have to confront it,” he said. “There was a lot of overtaking though. We will have to analyse all the overtaking manoeuvres but the marbles have to go somewhere and
that is a difficulty for us.”
Di Resta is looking pretty good as this is his debut season and so far, he has scored 2 points from the two races of the 2011 Formula 1 season. If he keeps on performing the way he is at the moment, Force-India might be able to challenge the mid-running
teams of the sport.
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