Singapore GP: Paul di Resta believes safety car timing cost him podium chance

The Scotsman delivered the best result of his F1 career as he followed podium finisher Fernando Alonso across the line - but he reckoned that a top-three finish could even have been on the cards.

"I would have liked the safety car not to have come out because there was a point where the Ferrari and the Red Bull switched to a three stop and, at that point, we would have liked to have carried on," di Resta told AUTOSPORT.

"At that point we stepped it up a little bit because the car was light and we had good speed.

"When the safety car came out we were comfortable keeping the people behind, but with fresh tyres over a stint the Ferrari is a bit quicker, which it should be, as it's a championship leading car at the moment.

"We turned a sixth place in qualifying to a fourth place on merit in the race, and we missed the opportunity at Spa with a KERS failure. But we made up for it here with an absolute performance."

Di Resta believes the Singapore performance did not come out of the blue, because the Force India car has been fast in recent races - although he has been unlucky to suffer mechanical issues.

"I think at Monza, had we not had the gearbox failure [before qualifying], we'd have got towed round a bit and we would have certainly beaten the Mercedes, so maybe a sixth place finish was possible. And maybe even we could have beat [Kimi] Raikkonen as we had similar speed to him.

"Obviously it is a different philosophy here, but all weekend we have been relatively competitive and we have converted that into a strong fourth place and managed that into a 15-second gap in the last ten laps.

"So, when you look at that, you take a lot of credit from it. This is a great result and we hope to get to Suzuka in the best shape we can."