In the first of the two DTM races at the Norisring, Edoardo Mortara kept a cool head in sweltering heat and, 14 years following the brand’s most recent success at the Norisring captured by former Abt Sportsline driver Laurent Aiello, finally gave Audi a victory again.
With that, the Italian from Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline not only made thousands of Audi fans lining the city street circuit around Nuremberg’s Dutzendteich lake cheer. At the wheel of his Castrol EDGE Audi RS 5 DTM, he took the lead of the overall standings again as well and is the first driver to have won two DTM races this year.
“Winning at the Norisring as an Audi driver is simply fantastic,” Mortara said after the hot battle at temperatures of about 30 degrees centigrade in the shade. “It was a difficult race because I had pressure from behind the whole time. That makes me all the happier.”
The Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline squad had laid the foundation for this triumph in qualifying. With grid positions two and six Mattias Ekström and Edoardo Mortara started Saturday’s race from the rows one and three.
In the first third of the race, it was initially Mattias Ekström who gave Audi fans rise to dream of victory. In his Red Bull Audi RS 5 DTM, the Swede fought duels with the two leading Mercedes-Benz cars. In an attempt to bump Robert Wickens from second place, on braking into turn one on lap 20, a collision occurred between Ekström and Wickens which caused Ekström to slide into the leader, Christian Vietoris. “I feel incredibly sorry for Christian,” said Ekström. “He was totally faultless in getting entangled in the tussle between me and Wickens.”
As a result of Edoardo Mortara’s victory, Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline took the lead of the teams’ standings as well. In the manufacturers’ standings, Audi, before race two on Sunday (start at 13:10/live on “Das Erste”), is trailing leader of the standings BMW by only 13 points.
