Pressure is on Jamie Green for Norisring

Jamie Green has dominated the season so far in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, winning three times and achieving two pole positions in four races.

The Briton gets to Norisring with 75 points on his account, 17 more than Mattias Ekström, his most immediate rival. Green is nicknamed “Mr. Norisring”, having won in the iconic street circuit four times, back 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012.

Such good results have had their counterpart in the performance weights. Green’s RS 5 DTM is on 1,137.5 kilos, 17.5 more than the base weight for all cars. The BMW M4 DTMs are, mostly, on 1,105 kilos, with Maxime Martin being the only exception.

Despite having most factors in his favour, Jamie Green was cautious yesterday: “I love this track, I just feel at ease and driving here feels like second nature. Still, with the performance weights, I don’t think we are favourites and we face a more difficult weekend than the others.”

Dieter Gass, Head of DTM for Audi, is also concerned about the effect of the ballast on his cars: “We have calculated that, in this track, the performance weights make us 0.3 seconds slower than the BMWs and, in this track, with lap times in 48.5 seconds, that’s a lot.”

Nevertheless, Jamie Green didn’t seem to have many problems yesterday, being only 0.045 seconds slower than pace setter, Mercedes’ Gary Paffett, and 0.013 behind Bruno Spengler, BMW’s top man.

Second free practice gets underway at 10:15 CEST (GMT + 2).