Jamie Green: "I feel like the Stirling Moss of the DTM world"

Would you say 2015 was your best ever year in DTM?

"Yeah I think it was. It was different having two races a weekend, so there were 18 races instead of 10 or 11. I won four races last year, but we started more races. Still, second is my best championship result in the DTM, before that my best was third in 2012.

"It was good to get my first win for Audi, I hadn’t won one for them before last year so that was quite a landmark."

So you feel like a proper Audi driver now, rather than just a Mercedes convert?

"Exactly – leaving Mercedes was a big thing, because I had been there so long. Before DTM I was contracted to them as a F3 driver, so it was hard to leave them. But I felt I’d given it my best shot there, I’d come third in the championship, won eight races along the way, so I felt it was time for a change.

"Leaving DTM wasn’t realistic, so the best thing to do was to get a fresh start with a new manufacturer and a different environment. Then there’s a certain pressure to make a success of that, because if I’d gone to Audi and been uncompetitive, then I’d have looked silly for leaving the safety of Mercedes.

"It’s nice to have made a success of that move, which is what last year represents, even if my ultimate goal remains the championship."

Doesn’t the law of averages say you’ll be a DTM champion eventually?

"I’d like to think so! Someone told me recently that I have ‘Stirling Moss syndrome', because he was a guy who won a lot of races but never the championship.

"Some guys who have won a championship have really struggled the following year, whereas I think being consistent and winning races every season is an achievement in itself.

"If you look at the number of race wins in DTM, I’m quite high up there now, and for me that speaks volumes – because to be consistently competitive in this championship is very difficult.

"I’d rather go into every year knowing I’m a contender, than winning it once and then being unable to reproduce that form.

In hindsight, do you wish Audi had supported your title bid last year in the way Mercedes supported Pascal Wehrlein?

"Not really. I know that Mattias Ekstrom is one of the best racing drivers in the world, and I beat him fair and square in the same car. I’d rather that than him slowing down and letting me win.

"Both times when I won at the Lausitzring, he wasn’t far away, especially on Sunday, and in the last race at Hockenheim that I won, he was second, and that was no gift. Those wins mean more to me because I know I earned them.

"And it’s a good feeling when you stand on the top step of the podium and you can think ‘I deserve to win this race’ – and there are occasions in DTM where people let their teammates by, and they aren’t proper wins.

"From Audi’s point of view, surely every team wants to have the best drivers they can. And at Audi last year we had three guys [Green, Ekstrom, and Edoardo Mortara] all at the front consistently, whereas Mercedes had one guy [Wehrlein].

"And if you only have one guy, and he doesn’t deliver, you’re not going to win. They were fortunate he delivered enough to get the championship, and they were fortunate no-one else within the Mercedes camp was taking points off him.

"It’s a fine line to get that right every year: who would say he’s head-and-shoulders above Paul Di Resta and Gary Paffett? Normally speaking, he’s not, but that’s just the way it went last year."

Moving onto this year's changes, will the new ballast regs lead people to being more tactical?

"Implementing tactics to keep ballast down with this system is going to be hard. That’s why it’s been brought in, because last year people slowed down in the race to not gain ballast – which is rubbish for the spectacle.

"This system makes more sense, because there’s no benefit to giving positions away in the race any more. The other thing is the new system is targeted at manufacturers, not individuals, so there won’t be one Audi really heavy and one really light – everyone’s at the same level, which I think is correct.

"If the car is capable of doing a certain thing, it should be the same for everybody. Last year, as a driver who didn’t score points, you got rewarded for it by having a light car, and maybe you could win a race, which was a bit fake. Every win should be earned, there shouldn’t be any easy wins."

Will we see less one-manufacturer domination at tracks this year?

"I think that was hard to understand. At the beginning of the year, we dominated, then mid-year BMW had the odd race where the whole top six or seven – and you’re left thinking, ‘how come they were nowhere at the start of the year and now they’re dominating?’

"It’s a bit boring if it’s like in F1 where the same couple of people are winning all the time, but it’s also hard to understand when it suddenly switches to the total reverse of the beginning of the year. That’s boring too, because those guys won’t battle that hard against each other if they’re teammates."

What about the changes to DRS, will they help to create better racing?

"I don’t think so. Personally I think it’s a fake thing anyway, like in F1, so it’s not like you’re watching and you think ‘wow, great overtake’.

"For example at Lausitz last year, I won the first race when my DRS didn’t even work, I had to overtake Molina without it. That kind of proves if you’re quick enough you don’t need it – so I’m not a big fan.

"If we do have to have it, It would make more sense to have a detection point relevant to the corner or straight you’re actually using instead of the start/finish line, which is a bit silly really.

"Let’s say you cross the start/finish line behind a backmarker, you have DRS for the next lap even though there’s no-one to overtake. Last year people could sit behind as long as they stayed within 1s they could use DRS all race.

"The gap between the quickest guy and the slowest was usually six or seven tenths, which is what DRS was worth at some tracks. So you could just hang on even if you were half a second off the pace. But it wasn’t making the racing interesting because they weren’t overtaking, just hanging on."

Do you fancy venturing outside of DTM in coming years?

"With Audi, there are options to drive outside of the DTM, which was one of the attractions for me joining because there wasn’t the opportunity to do that with Mercedes. With Audi, there are other series I can compete in if DTM were to stop, or if I wanted to try something else.

"I’m definitely interested in those, but right now I’m focussed on winning the DTM title. Long-term I’d like to have a go at GT racing, and if I win DTM maybe I’ll push to get involved on the LMP side of things. At the moment it’s not really on the radar."

What are your main long-term career goals?

"One of my main focuses is to win as many races as I can in DTM, get to over 20 [he's currently on 12]. That’s something I want to maximise. Then maybe if I get a DTM championship under my belt, there might come a point where I want to change, maybe try to win the Le Mans 24 Hours.

"But again, it depends on opportunities with Audi. It would be nice to end my career as F3 champion, DTM champion and Le Mans winner. I’d be happy with that."

Finally - your thoughts on ‘push him out’-gate last year?

"I think things get forgotten very quickly. Obviously it was a big deal when it happened, but we need a bit of scandal and drama otherwise it gets a bit politically correct and boring!

"All in all, I don’t think it was a bad thing for DTM, even if it was not a good thing for Audi. I think Dr. Ullrich was just frustrated with the way the Mercedes was blocking Timo [Scheider] and trying to hold him up to let Wehrlein through, which is all a bit over-the-top and unnecessary.

"So I understand Dr. Ullrich was angry at what Mercedes was trying to do. What’s funny is how it was all twisted round on Audi as being the baddies, when in fact it started from Mercedes playing professional fouls in the first place.

"We’re no guiltier than they are, it was just more publicised. It’s just part and parcel of the sport and we shouldn’t be ashamed of it."