Paul Di Resta has been excluded from qualifying for the British GP and will now start the race from the back of the grid after his car was found to be underweight.
It will be the third race in a row that the Scot has started from an unrepresentative position.
The Force India driver had qualified an excellent fifth, so that position now goes to Daniel Ricciardo, with Adrian Sutil, Romain Grosjean, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button filling spots six to 10.
The FIA was alerted to a possible issue when the weight of the car and driver was found to be 0.5kgs below the 642.0kgs limit. Had there been a little bit fuel in the car – making it safely over the limit – there might not have been an issue.
However, the fact that the car was already under the limit led to further investigation and to the car being drained of fuel. The final figure was 1.5kgs below the limit.
It’s believed that the discrepancy related to Paul’s weight when he stepped on the scales at the end of qualifying, and the number recorded proved to be lower than the usual figure. Teams keep a regular check on driver weights over the course of a weekend in order to avoid such issues, and Force India doesn’t understand why the problem occurred.
Sporting director Andy Stevenson and team CEO Otmar Szafnauer met with the stewards to discuss the matter, but to no avail.
The team did brielfy consider an appeal, on the grounds that the FIA scales were suspect, but decided to accept the decision.
Adam Cooper F1 
Now ain’t that some bad luck, the home GP and all!
“Luck” is defined as “an event which occurs beyond one’s control, without regard to
one’s will, intention, or desired result.”
The failure of the team do run what should be their standard check list is hardly “luck”. I would imagine that Di Resta is still vibrating like a tuing fork and if V J hasn’t tasered someone’s rear end by now…
Excuse me for making such mistake as using that word! Of course you’re correct about the true meaning of the word luck.