By Johan Laubscher
The Macau Grand Prix is coming up this week. Mr Macau, Edoardo Mortara, will be aiming to continue his unbeaten run at this very special annual street race.
Mortara will be racing the #1 Audi R8 LMS ultra for the Audi race experience team this year. He has been unbeaten at Macau in every event that he has competed in since 2009. He won the prestigious Macau Formula 3 event in 2009 and 2010 and followed that up by taking the Macau GT Cup victories with Audi in 2011, 2012 and 2013, along with the Audi R8 LMS Cup support event victory in 2013, making it six out of six for the Italian at Macau.
Audi Communication - Motorsport (Audi PR) released a brief interview with Mortara regarding the upcoming Macau GT Cup race, we have included it below:
A word from … Edoardo Mortara:
Victory in the Formula 3 races in 2009 and 2010 and in the GT Cup from 2011 to 2013. Next weekend, in the Macau Grand Prix, you could be clinching your sixth consecutive win. Who are the major rivals?
There are quite a few. In the GT Cup, two current DTM drivers – Marco Wittmann and Augusto Farfus – and two former ones – Maro Engel and Renger van der Zande – will be competing. They can be rated as strong competitors, just like Laurens Vanthoor, who in the squad of the Audi race experience is my team-mate this year. He won the Blancpain Endurance Series and the GT Series in the Audi R8 LMS ultra. But maybe there’ll be some surprises. After all, drivers in cars from eleven different manufacturers will be competing now. It’s difficult to assess the strength in advance.
Is running alongside a strong team-mate more of a curse or a blessing?
It’s not the first time that Laurens and I compete for the same team. We jointly contested the 2010 season of the Formula 3 Euro Series for the Volkswagen Signature team. So we know each other well from those days. Having a strong team-mate is positive. Laurens is very talented and has made an enormous leap in his career in the past two or three years. I think he’s going to be my fiercest competitor in Macau.
I’ve gained a lot of knowledge about this difficult track in recent years. I know what works and what doesn’t. Obviously, I’ve got an advantage over rookies. But you’ll never achieve 100 percent. I’m working on getting as close to perfection as possible. For instance, I watch videos of Macau races in order to visualize the track over and over.
Do you have a specific strategy in mind for setting up your car for Macau?
No. Macau is so diverse that it’s not possible to set up the car in a specific direction, be it in terms of top speed or maximum downforce. Essentially, you’ve got to be prepared for everything.
