Edoardo Mortara: “We’ve still got some work to do”

Edoardo Mortara believes Audi still has work to do, despite managing to qualify fourth and the best of the Ingolstadt drivers at the Norisring.

The Italian’s result comes on a weekend which is proving to be difficult for Audi, and Mortara believes it would have been difficult to have got any more from the team’s RS5 car as it seeks to win its home race for the first time in 11 years.

“Achieving a better result would have been difficult today,” said Mortara. “In Q3 and Q4, I had the feeling of having squeezed the maximum out of the car.

“We’re not completely in front yet so we’ve still got some work to do, but the gap isn’t large and that’s good.”

Meanwhile, Mortara’s Audi stablemate, and drivers’ championship leader, Mike Rockenfeller, caused a shock when he dropped out of the first round of qualifying, and subsequently qualified 19th.

“Unfortunately, I can’t say much today,” said Rockenfeller. “In the first races of the season, we always got everything right in the team.”

“Today, we weren’t where we wanted to be with the set-up. I tried everything, [but] more wasn’t possible.”