Spa-Francorchamps was not Mirko Bortolotti’s weekend: The Grasser-Lamborghini title candidate only scored five points with eighth and tenth place after having to start from 20th place in each case.
And despite numerous successful overtaking manoeuvres, he still had to deal with the criticism because of the two collisions at the Nürburgring.
But the 32-year-old defends himself against the allegations. “My way of driving is my way of driving,” said Bortolotti at “ran.de”. That’s what he “became known for over the years, for what I really am – and not for what people say. At the end of the day, facts and figures count. Everything else is just blah blah blah and completely unimportant to me. I drive hard but fair.”
After the criticism against Bortolotti at the Nürburgring, David Schumacher had followed up in the run-up to the spa weekend. The Winward Mercedes rookie felt unfairly attacked by Bortolotti’s Grasser teammate Clemens Schmid and said that Bortolotti “did a lot more than I did – and he also destroyed the race for many more people”.
Bortolotti after Schumacher criticism: “Prefer a stylish way”
And father Ralf Schumacher also gave his son backing and chalked it up to “ran.de” Bortolotti that he “drives for the championship and constantly breaks things”.
Bortolotti now says it’s not his style to use the media to resolve disagreements. “I’m not the type to go on TV and gossip about colleagues. I’ve never done it – and I don’t intend to. Everyone has their own way of doing it. I prefer the stylish one.”
You quickly get into a situation where you “say something stupid in the heat of the moment,” says Bortolotti. That’s why he tries to “count to five before I say anything”.
“If I only committed fouls I wouldn’t be here”
Nevertheless, he finds that the criticism of his person is unjustified. “If it comes to the point that I make a mistake, then I accept the punishment for it,” explains the Italian, who lives in Vienna. “It’s like football: if you commit a foul, you get a yellow card and you have to do better next time.”
But if he had “only committed fouls or just driven badly over the course of his career, then I certainly wouldn’t be here. Nobody gave me anything. In the end, it’s the facts that count – and everything else doesn’t interest me at all.”
In addition, he did not gain any advantage from the contacts he made in the past races – like many others, he was also involved in crashes in Saturday’s race at the Norisring and retired. “You’re at a huge disadvantage yourself because you drop out, like in my cases,” he says. “If I look at the accidents at the Norisring and the Nürburgring, then I have punished myself for it.”
Why Bortolotti only scored five points in Spa
The fact that he wasn’t able to strike properly in Spa either and is now only fourth in the championship with a 36-point deficit was mainly due to the qualifying sessions, because on Saturday they gambled with the slicks on a damp track and on Sunday the timing was also right changeable conditions.
“Of course we can’t be satisfied with the number of points,” says team manager Gottfried Grasser. “We didn’t make the right decisions in qualifying this weekend and made life very difficult for ourselves.”
But Bortolotti “did another fantastic race and, against all odds, made it into the points. It was really important to take a result with you,” said the Austrian, before the home race in Spielberg.