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Dovizioso in the DTM: "I made mistakes in the race and learned a lot"

Andrea  finished 12th in the first round in Misano and managed to keep a good pace: "The start was a disaster, I have to improve because overtaking is difficult."

News: Dovizioso in the DTM: "I made mistakes in the race and learned a lot"

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Andrea Dovizioso finished his first DTM experience with a 12th place. On the Misano circuit, the Ducati rider had to manage the 610 horsepower of his Audi RS5 DTM for an hour of competition. 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 found myself ultimately undermining all the effort I made in the qualifying session."

From there, however, Dovizioso buckled down and climbed some positions, fighting the entire race for 14th place against the Aston Martins and with the twin Audi driven by Pietro Fittipaldi, grandson of the great Emerson, who is a professional driver.

"For the entire race, I was behind Fittipaldi then, in the final lap, I was not concentrated, and I lost 6 or 7 seconds." But on the last lap, Dovizioso overtook two cars in front of him and closed behind the tenth position, which is his goal for race-2.

His pace was good: he finished 12th (out of 18 cars at the start), 57 seconds behind the winner, Wittmann, with the BMW M4 DTM. But it's a fact that's distorted by the strange course of the race because the winner, who had left the pits last due to a malfunction during the qualifying session, took the lead thanks to an early stop and the safety car that put him back into play. So Dovizioso's correct gap should be compared to Rast, 2nd ranking with the Audi, who had a "correct" race like Dovi. Since the Ducati rider finished 49" from Rast, this means he remedied an average gap of 1"2 per lap. Excellent, considering how the race progressed. Much less than what he got in the qualifying session (1"7) from Rast and his pole.

But Dovi is not a dreamer and is still demanding of himself. "I made several mistakes during the race. Besides the start, I went wide a few times. Then I realized that, in a car race, when you lose grip, it's very different from the qualifying lap where it's much more precise. But following the others, I learned the correct trajectories better. I saw that everyone cut the corners much more than me. Now my goal is to improve in qualification for race 2, which will take place on Sunday. Starting in front means having the opportunity to gain positions in the race because overtaking in the DTM is really difficult."

If you want to review the race from the camera mounted in Andrea Dovizios's Audi RS5, click HERE.

Translated by Leila Myftija
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