Photo: Audi MediaCenter

Edoardo Mortara vows to continue fighting in uphill battle

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The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters heads to the Hungaroring for the eighth round of the 2016 season this weekend, where Audi Sport is still in the hunt for all three titles, with Edoardo Mortara now their point-man in the drivers’ fight.

The Italian from Team Abt Sportsline is currently second in the standings with 137 points, 33 behind BMW’s Marco Wittmann. The pair are the only drivers to have repeated visits to the top step of the podium, with three each.

Mortara needs to be ahead of Wittmann in Hungary to keep his options for the title open. The Italian is confident that the he can continue to take the fight to Wittmann.

“Two years ago, I was a struggling a little with the car. But since then, my confidence in the car has grown a lot and things are going really well at the moment. We need another good weekend to reduce the gap to Marco Wittmann. My title chances are intact and we’re going to battle up until the very end.”

The DTM last visited the Hungaroring two years ago, with Team Abt’s Miguel Molina taking the best result then for the Ingolstadt manufacturer with second place. The Spaniard said to TouringCarTimes: “At the moment, we are a little behind our competitors. Our problem is making the most of the tyres in qualifying. But, when it comes to race pace, we are ahead. It’s something we have to look into to find some solutions.”

Audi Sport lies second in the manufacturers’ table, 57 points behind BMW Motorsport and 35 ahead of Mercedes AMG. The RS 5 DTMs will start the Hungarian weekend as the lightest cars on the field, with a base weight of 1,110 kg.

Dieter Gass, Head of DTM at Audi Sport, thinks Budapest will be a key step in the manufacturers’ fight for the title. Improving qualifying performance will be crucial: “It’s clear that on the Budapest weekend we need to achieve more points than our competitors in order to put ourselves in a good position for the final attack at Hockenheim. We had to do some homework before Budapest. First of all, we intend to improve our qualifying performance and to move our cars further forward on the grid.”