Jamie Green happy to have won despite penalty

Audi Sport driver Jamie Green crossed the line first in the second race of the season opener weekend at Hockenheim, the 14th victory of his DTM career, after a difficult race disrupted by rain.

The Briton qualified in third place on the grid, having to avoid fellow Team Rosberg driver René Rast, who was slow off the starting line. “The race today was very challenging. I made a good start unlike René. I was then second behind Timo Glock, but the safety car came out, so that was a bit frustrating,” said Green to TouringCarTimes.

The NASCAR-style restart took place on lap four, with Green becoming the subject of an investigation by the stewards after being ahead of Glock when pack reached the line. The Audi driver received a 5-second stop and go penalty, but doesn’t think he was at fault: “We had discussions about the procedure before the season, and it’s obvious we will have to clarify a few things. We were told that when race direction says ‘Go’ on the radio we can race and that’s what I did. I was trying to keep the same speed as Timo, but he seemed to be slow to react and that had an effect on everybody in the inside line.”

“But I’m not surprised we have some issues, it’s the first time we’ve done it, we’ve practiced restart procedure maybe three times, so perhaps we should look at it a bit more. Obviously, I got the penalty, which I don’t agree with, but that didn’t prevent me from winning the race,” added the Audi driver.

Green led a strong charge, opening a 10-second gap to his followers, but the race was far from easy: “I was quick enough to pull away, I made the tyre change at the right time and was able to bring it home under very difficult conditions.”

Managing the race was even more challenging for Green with the ban on communications from the team to the car. “It’s kind of a shock to the system. When you are driving on slicks and you know you have to make a stop, but you don’t know whether it’s going to rain hard or it’s going to stop, and you have to calculate that by yourself. You can ask questions to the team but they can’t answer you, so yes, I was kind of learning whilst I was doing it. Normally they would pit you with the board but, in this situation, you are the one who has to make the decision, because you are who is on the track, and they can’t see the conditions.”

The changes in DTM for this season have been the main talking point at Hockenheim. The Team Rosberg driver feels excited about the prospects, leaving the Baden-Wüttemberg track in second place in the standings. “The new regulations give you the possibility to recover on Sunday from a bad day on Saturday, as it happened to me yesterday. The idea is to make racing more exciting, and we got that. With regards to the rest of the year, it’s early to judge, but it looks like our race pace is strong, but set-up, tyre management and adapting to the circumstances will be very important,” concluded Green.