Edoardo Mortara not confident in clean race

Audi’s Edoardo Mortara is not confident he will be able to have a clean race at Zandvoort, after being hit by problems in the last eight rounds of the 10-race 2013 DTM season.

Mortara won his second DTM career race at Zandvoort in 2012, but so far in 2013, the Italian has scored just two points in a tough season which has seen him hit by technical problems and accidents.

The most notable retirement of the season was his accident with Gary Paffett at the Norisring whilst fighting for a podium.

He has also been forced to retire from strong starting positions at the Red Bull Ring – another circuit where he won in 2012 – and the Nürburgring.

“Am I confident for the race? Not at all,” Mortara told TouringCarTimes. “There have been eight races this season where it’s gone wrong for a lot of reasons and it looks like it’s currently difficult for us to have some good results.

Mortara added he is disappointed with qualifying seventh at Zandvoort, given he was quickest in the second part of yesterday’s qualifying session and won at the Dutch track last season.

He was also at a loss to explain how his Rosberg run RS 5 DTM lost its strong pace between Q2 and Q3.

“If you look at what happened in qualifying and where we’re starting from, I think it’s a bit disappointing to start from seventh.

“We were on top in Q2 and for some reasons we don’t understand, we lost that performance in Q3.”