Photo: DTM Media

Jamie Green up to third in the standings, but mindful of bigger gap to the lead

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Audi Sport Rosberg’s Jamie Green moved to joint-third in the DTM drivers’ standings after a steady run to fifth on Saturday at Zandvoort, but with half the season to go, the Briton isn’t focussing on the championship yet, and is more focussed on a stronger run on Sunday.

The 34-year-old finished the Sunday morning practice session in fifth position, the same as he finished Race 1 on Sunday, having an anonymous race behind the ART Mercedes of Gary Paffett, and with a safe gap to the Schnitzer BMW of António Félix Da Costa, who was preoccupied in a battle with the Abt Audi of Mattias Ekström.

“Pace-wise there were points in the race where I felt quicker than Gary, but I think he had it under control,” said Green to TouringCarTimes. “At the beginning of the race there was the safety car and I had the DRS for about one lap but then he broke it and I was 1.5 behind. At one point it was down 1.3 and I thought maybe I’ll get my DRS back, but in the last six laps I didn’t have the pace to stay with them. Fortunately, I didn’t have anyone behind putting any pressure on as I didn’t have much pace left.”

Audi were given a 5kg reduction in weight based on their pace after qualifying, which Green had hoped would have made up the difference in performance seen between the RS 5 and Mercedes’ C63s this weekend.

“If you look at qualifying, weight corrected it was quite close, but we still struggled in the race as even though we’re the same weight as the Mercedes, they were quicker. We’re missing something particularly on this track so hopefully we can figure it out (before Sunday’s race).”

Green is now tied in third in the championship with Audi colleague Edoardo Mortara, but now trails championship leader Marco Wittmann by 20 points heading into today’s race.

“I’ve moved up position-wise, but the gap to the front has got bigger,” he said. “There’s still nine races to go, so from my point of view we’re just trying to do the best we can in every event and see where it takes us.”