Bortolotti: Late Pitstop the Right Call in Podium Battle

Mirko Bortolotti says GRT Grasser Racing Team made the right call to wait until late in Saturday’s DTM race at the Red Bull Ring to bring him in for his mandatory pitstop, even if it failed to get him past Rene Rast after the pair’s lengthy battle for second place.

Bortolotti made a podium return by finishing third behind Rast and race winner Nick Cassidy, finishing inside the top three for the first time since the second race at the Norisring prior to the summer break.

The Italian started the race from sixth place but a strong opening lap saw him to climb to third place early on, slotting in behind Cassidy and Rast.

The No. 63 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo spent a significant chunk of the race closely following Rast’s car and the pair notably stayed out far longer than the majority of the cars behind them.

Rast was the first of the duo to pit with 17 minutes remaining on the clock, with Bortolotti and Cassidy following suit a lap later.

With just over fifteen minutes remaining, this was the last opportunity for both drivers to pit as rules state the mandatory stop may only be carried out between the tenth and the 40th minute of the race.

A slow stop then saw Bortolotti fail to get past Rast for second, leaving him to come home in third place.

Bortolotti said after the race that despite his failure to get past Rast on the overcut, he believes the team was right to wait as long as they did before pitting.

“It’s a track that doesn’t really help the first guy that pits because bringing the tires to temperature takes a while,” Bortolotti explained.

“So everybody tends to stay out as long as possible.

“When I saw him pitting, I thought ‘okay, this could an opportunity for us.’

“I think we made the right call to stay out. Unfortunately it was not the best pitstop for us.

“We had a little issue on the front left, but we didn’t lose any position.

“We were third before that and we finished third, so I am more than happy with the result.”

Rast, who moved into second place in the championship standings thanks to his second-placed finish, similarly indicated that the three leading drivers were engaged in a waiting game to see who would head for the pits first.

“It wasn’t an easy race, because I couldn’t make any little mistakes otherwise Mirko would have slipped through,” Rast said.

“In the end we were just waiting, all of us, just to see who would pit first.

“At one point we decided to pit, otherwise we would have run into danger from full course yellows.

“We didn’t want to take that risk. That’s why we pitted.

“We knew that we were not going to win this race due to that, but we took the safe side and decided to either finish second or third.”

Bortolotti: Podium Return “Really Important”

Bortolotti was pleased about his return to podium form after two challenging weekends at the Nürburgring and Spa, where he scored just five points across four races and dropped from first to fourth in the standings as a result.

“It was really important, definitely,” he said about his podium finish.

“I mean, we are running out of races, so if you don’t do it now, when do you want to do it?

“For sure it was really important and fundamental to have a strong start to the weekend and to ideally have a strong weekend in general.

“So we need to work now and put our heads down to have a strong result tomorrow as well.”

He added: “We started from sixth and finished third, so we’re really happy with this result on a track that on paper does not really suit us, to be honest.

“So I think that the team did great. We did a great job yesterday especially on preparing two scenarios, quali and race.

“After two difficult weekends we are definitely happy to be back to a good result and being back on the podium feels really good, so for today we are really happy.

“We have three more races ahead of us that we are really looking forward to.

“But for today we did all we needed to do. Mission accomplished for Saturday.”