Di Resta eighth fastest after `intense` day of testing

Paul di Resta lost track time in the morning session on the third day of pre-season testing, records eighth fastest time.

Barcelona: Sahara Force India`s Paul di Resta lost track time in the morning session on the third day of pre-season testing here before completing 83 laps and setting the eighth fastest time.

Williams` Pastor Maldonado topped the time-sheets Thursday with the quickest lap of 1:22.391. Di Resta, driving for the first time in the four-day test, was forced to stop Thursday morning after VJM05 lost the engine cover, causing a red flag around 90 minutes before lunch. The afternoon went much better for the Silverstone-based team with di Resta finishing 63 laps. The Scot later described the day as "intense" and praised the new car. "Quite an intense day and a very busy afternoon, but the main thing is that we achieved the objectives for the day," said di Resta, whose best time was 1:25.646. "There will be a lot of analysing tonight to see what we can learn, especially trying to understand the data from the long runs this afternoon. "As I said in Jerez, it is nice to have a car with such a good baseline because it makes it easier to experiment with the set-up and that is what we are trying to do at the moment." His teammate Nico Hulkenberg had recorded the fastest time Wednesday. IANS