A hefty rate of attrition was one of the talking points of the first ever Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters night race at Misano, with six drivers not finishing, but Edoardo Mortara was pleased to make sure that his Mercedes C63 AMG Coupé after a difficult day on home soil.
“I’m just really happy to have gotten to the end of this race, with all the issues that we have had throughout the day,” admitted the Italian at yesterday’s post-race press conference (Saturday, August 25th).
He completed the podium behind Stuttgart stablemate and race winner Paul Di Resta and Audi’s Robin Frijns, who took his maiden DTM podium.
“I had to save the car right from lap one, short shifting [through the gears], lifting off on the straight.”
Mortara, who now moves up to third in the standings on 118 points, was unable to avoid contact with both Philipp Eng and stablemate Gary Paffett, as the trio were three-wide going into turn eight, after Paffett locked up on cold tyres.
“My intention was not to make contact, especially with our cars, as they are quite fragile, so you’re trying to avoid this. I made a small mistake and ran wide, coming back on track rather aggressively, but probably because Gary didn’t see me on the left hand side.
“I had Eng on the left hand side and got squeezed, and from that moment on, both sides of the car were damaged.”
The 31-year-old’s race car looked like it had been rallying, but it was as a result of an earlier incident, that could have compromised his race even further.
“It’s really the thing that you don’t want to have when you have a night race like that, because Gary braked late and went on to the grass.
“The best thing for me to do was to turn off the wiper, because if I had kept it on, I would have had to stop [the car], so for me, the race was a nightmare. I’m happy it’s done now and I’m looking forward to having a really good sleep.”