Photo: DTM Media

Jamie Green slams “extreme” performance ballast rules

Audi Sport Team Rosberg driver has criticised the performance weights system of the DTM following the most recent round of the championship at the Nürburgring, saying that the weight and pure bad luck have put paid to his title hopes.

The 33-year-old’s season got off to a stunning start, with the Briton taking three wins from the first four races, and he remains the driver with the most individual wins this year in one of the closest DTM seasons on record, after BMW’s Maxime Martin and Audi colleague Miguel Molina scored their first victories of 2015 at the Nürburgring.

Green’s weekend got off to a tough start, caught up in a first lap clash with BMW’s Tom Blomqvist and Mercedes driver Daniel Juncadella, which saw Green spun around and collected by Molina’s Audi.

In race two, Green had qualified third on the grid behind Molina and Blomqvist, with both drivers running with a base weight of 1,115kg at the Nürburgring vs. Green’s 1,125kg, but Green failed to get away at the start and ended up running around the back of the field and finished outside of the points.

“I was on the grid just as the lights were coming on the car was rolling forward, and I thought that’s not good,” said Green to TouringCarTimes. “The handbrake just didn’t work…so I was trying to fix the problem and then the race started. I ended up in neutral and that cost me even more time, I was lucky no one hit me.”

Green’s championship challenge officially came to an end after the race as he’s now 57 points behind points leader Pascal Wehrlein with just 50 available from the finale at Hockenheim in two weeks’ time.

Green put his troubled second half of the season down to mechanical issues as well as the DTM’s new performance weight system, which is set to be adjusted for 2016.

“If you don’t score any points for most of the year you end up with quite a light car and then you can win a race,” explained Green. “(Tom) Blomqvist did that at Oschersleben, and Miguel (Molina) did it this week, it’s a bit of a frustrating situation, while I won when everyone was at a similar weight.

“It’s a bit extreme at the moment,” he added. “Our cars are all very similar, so if you ran everyone with the same weight all of the time it’s a very close championship, even closer than Formula One. We’ve got all these standardised parts and then you throw in differences in success ballast of up to 35kg, which is like six and a half tenths (of a second) a lap in weight, and that’s the denominating factor, not the driver, because the difference between the best driver and the worst driver isn’t even six tenths.”

“BMW have now ended up leading the manufacturers’ championship when they’ve clearly got the worst car, so for me it’s a bit of a silly rule.”