Edoardo Mortara critical with himself after a tough day at Hockenheim

Edoardo Mortara completed his first race for Mercedes AMG in fourth position, a result that didn’t match the Italian’s expectations after being a championship contender in the last two DTM seasons.

The initial stages of the race were difficult for the Italian, who wasn’t feeling comfortable. “The tyres were OK, didn’t degrade a lot. It’s a shame, because the race should have been a bit better for me, but I was fighting with the car a bit. It was fast in the straights but had a few problems in the corners. I was OK at the end of the race, because Ekström didn’t manage to overtake me, but yes, the beginning was a bit difficult”, Mortara said to TouringCarTimes.

It has been suggested that possibly the pre-season talk about tyre degradation was exaggerated given what was seen in the race today. Mortara thinks that the conditions didn’t favour significant degradation, but that it will come. “Definitely, we did our tests during the winter and we saw the performance drop, it’s there. Maybe we won’t see it so much here, but it could be more noticeable in successive races”, said the Italian.

Mortara started the race third on the grid, but was quickly overtaken by BMW’s Timo Glock. Asked about a possible problem in the initial stages, the Italian said: “The start isn’t my strong point and that’s why Timo went through. Certainly we have to continue practising and getting better at it.”

The Italian moved to Mercedes after having been an Audi driver since his DTM debut, back in 2011. Evaluating his first weekend so far, Mortara said: “My debut wasn’t bad, we have some important points for the championship, but a racing driver also has to question himself. If your team does the pole position and wins the race, you can say that the car and team are competitive. For many reasons, including that I’m still fighting with the car and not driving as I would want to, I’m not getting out the full potential of the car. I hope that in future races this will be different.”

Much has been said about the new regulations taking aero from the cars and giving more importance to drivers’ ability, but the Italian thinks that 2017 cars aren’t much different from the previous year’s: “People speak a lot about how the car behaviour changes but, to be honest, we feel more or less the same. I’m not saying that driving won’t be more difficult when we are at a circuit where the tyre degradation is higher. When you block your wheels, you pay dearly for them.”

New year, new team and new car for Mortara. How is life at Mercedes for him? “It’s simply different, is a different way of working, the team has a different philosophy and I also have to adapt to that”, concluded Mortara.