Green defends DTM restart after Hockenheim penalty

Jamie Green has defended his restart in the second DTM race at Hockenheim after the race winner was hit with a penalty in a troubled first outing of the championship’s new restart procedure.

The DTM has adopted an IndyCar-style safety car protocol, with cars lining up side-by-side at 80km/h before the starting lights switch off and drivers return to race speeds.

The first use of the new restart came after the safety car was called out following a collision between Nico Muller and Robert Wickens that left the Mercedes driver in the gravel.

Green then appeared to have pulled ahead of race leader Timo Glock at the line as the race restarted, leading to a five second stop/go penalty.

When asked to confirm reports of illegal braking and accelerating on the start/finish straight before the restart, Green said: “I don’t really know what they are talking about.

“We’ve been discussing how the rules should be for the front row and when the race starts, who decides when it starts and so on.

“My understanding is that the race starts when the lights go off and we also had the race director on the radio saying ‘green’ when the race starts.

“I reacted to that and that meant that I crossed the line before Timo Glock did and it seems like everyone did because Gary [Paffett] overtook before Turn 1. I don’t know quite what he was doing, to be honest.

“Then I got a penalty - a five second stop/go - for that.

"I was trying to keep at basically the same speed as Timo. As far as I understood it, he’s dictating the speed and the pace and I just tried to stay close to him.

“The idea is that we are very close together in the middle of the circuit and that was all that I was trying to do.”

The 34-year-old led home a British one-two from Mercedes driver Paffett in race two and they are tied for second in the standings on 26 points, 14 behind race one winner Lucas Auer.

Story by Matt Kew, additional reporting by Emmanuel Rolland