Who will succeed Mirko Bortolotti as DTM champion? What distinguishes this year’s title fight from previous years and who the Italian is betting on
With two weekends to go, DTM champion Mirko Bortolotti still has a theoretical chance of defending his title, but in practical terms, his difficult season at Abt means that ship has long since sailed. But who would the Italian Lamborghini works driver back to succeed him?
A question that is not so easy for him to answer. “I’m a little confused after Sachsenring because I saw some really wild things there,” “And by that I basically mean the title fight. In any case, things are different now than they have been in recent years.“
What does he mean by that? ”This year, I haven’t seen a single title contender who hasn’t missed out on big opportunities or dropped really big points at some point,” he explains. That wasn’t the case in the past.
“There’s a reason why Luggi has been leading since the first race.”
“That’s why it’s pure speculation this year as to who it will be,” says Bortolotti, who has fought for the title in all three of his DTM years apart from this season, not wanting to commit himself for the time being.
But if he has to commit himself? “I think there’s a reason why Luggi has been consistently leading the standings since the first race and has been able to defend his lead even on bad weekends,” he says, referring to the Landgraf Mercedes driver, who took the lead with his victory at the season opener in Oschersleben and only relinquished it twice from Saturday to Sunday to Emil Frey Ferrari driver Jack Aitken.
“I think other drivers in the field who are at the front would have had the chance to lead by 20 points now, but they missed it,” says Bortolotti. So if he had to make a prediction, it would be the 30-year-old Austrian, who leads Aitken by two points in the overall standings ahead of his home race in Spielberg: ” Consistency currently speaks in Luggi Auer’s favor.”
Bortolotti: Why the level isn’t higher this year
Nevertheless, the density at the top of the table is enormous: the top nine are separated by only 28 points – the maximum number of points that can be achieved on a race day. And there are still four of those to come.
So is the level even higher than last year, when Bortolotti, Kelvin van der Linde, and Maro Engel had pulled away before Spielberg and Aitken was already 50 points behind in fourth place? “I wouldn’t say so, because the drivers who are in the title fight now were also there last year,” replies Bortolotti.
“And if they weren’t in the title fight last year, there was a reason. It’s hard to compare. Every year has its own story.”
Apart from that, in the DTM, “everything has to be just right if you want to be at the front – I can’t say any more than that. Let’s wait and see who it will be,” he says, looking forward with excitement to the hotly contested title finale in Austria this coming weekend and at the Hockenheimring in Germany.
