Andrea Dovizioso finished his first DTM experience with a 12th place. On the track in Misano, the Ducati driver had to master the 610 hp of his Audi RS5 DTM for an hour. A far superior distance than MotoGP.
“”All in all, it went well,” he said. “Apart from the start, which was a disaster because I started badly and ultimately undermined all the efforts I made in qualifying. “
From there, however, Dovizioso buckled his belt and climbed a few positions. He fought the entire race for 14th place against the Aston Martins and with the double Audi of Pietro Fittipaldi, grandson of the great Emerson, who is a professional driver.
“During the entire race I was behind Fittipaldi, on the last lap I wasn’t focused and lost 6 or 7 seconds.” On the final lap, Dovizioso overtook two cars in front of him and finished behind tenth place, which is his goal for race two.
His pace was good: He finished 12th (of 18 cars at the start), 57 seconds behind the winner Wittmann with the BMW M4 DTM. But it’s a fact skewed by the strange course of the race because the winner, who last left the pits due to a malfunction in qualifying, took the lead thanks to an early stop and the safety car that got him back into play took over. Therefore Dovizioso’s correct distance should be compared with Rast, the second place with the Audi, which had a “correct” race like Dovi. Since the Ducati rider finished 49 “from Rast, it means he fixes an average gap of 1 “2 per lap. Excellent considering how the race is Made progress. Much less than what he got from Rast and his pole in qualifying (1 “7).
But Dovi is not a dreamer and still demands of himself. “”I made several mistakes during the race. Besides starting, I went far a few times. Then I realized that in a car race, when you lose your grip, it’s very different than in the qualifying round, where it’s much more precise. But I followed the others and learned the correct trajectories better. I saw that everyone cut corners a lot more than I did. Now my goal is to improve the qualification for the second race, which will take place on Sunday. Starting at the front means having the opportunity to achieve positions in the race, as overtaking in the DTM is very difficult. “
If you want to check the race with the camera installed in the Audi RS5 by Andrea Dovizios, click HERE.