Wehrlein's quality evident in DTM title campaign

Perennial DTM frontrunner Green was beaten to a maiden title in the series by Mercedes protege Wehrlein, who then secured a drive in F1 at Manor with the Stuttgart manufacturer's backing.

Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com, Green lavished praise on Wehrlein for his consistency and ability to extract strong results even when his machinery wasn't performing well, something he believes will serve him well in Grand Prix racing.

"I think he’s more than good enough to race in F1," said the Briton. "He didn’t do anything amazing in DTM, which you made you think ‘wow’. He was just solid in all areas.

"That’s a compliment because he’s so young and low on experience. He didn’t make mistakes.

"He won two races, which isn’t outstanding, but he won a title because he was solid over the whole year and drove in an experienced manner, even though he was inexperienced."

Green added: "One of the most impressive drives of his for me was when he finished fifth at Oschersleben, when the BMW was dominant.

"He was quite a bit ahead of his teammates all weekend, and he just ground out the results where other people couldn’t.

"When the car was hard to drive, it didn’t faze him, which I think will stand him in good stead throughout his career.

"He’s not a guy who just shows up when everything’s perfect, he can drag the car to the front even when it’s not nice to drive, which is a skill in itself."

DTM better preparation than GP2

Wehrlein's route to F1 was an unorthodox one, having gone from racing in European Formula 3 directly to DTM instead of progressing to a more traditional F1 feeder category such as GP2.

But Green reckons Wehrlein will have learned more in his championship-winning campaign that he would have done had he raced in GP2.

"GP2 is the more obvious route, but I just don’t think the standard is that high there," said Green.

"For someone like Wehrlein, winning DTM was a bigger achievement than winning GP2 would’ve been, because you race against experienced guys who are being paid to do it, rather than guys that can afford to race in GP2.

"Also, in GP2, there are no real demands on you out of the car. If you do DTM, you have to sign autographs, do interviews, do TV work – a whole load of other stuff that comes with being a professional racing driver.

"So you’re a much more rounded driver coming from DTM instead of GP2."

Asked which other drivers in the current DTM field would be good enough to progress to F1, Green replied: "I think everyone in the field is good enough, talent-wise! It’s just opportunity, and age.

"If I’d have got the opportunity when I was younge,r I could’ve done it, and the same applies to various people in the DTM.

"There are a few who haven’t come through single-seaters: [Mattias] Ekstrom, [Mike] Rockenfeller, [Maxime] Martin… they probably couldn’t jump in an F1 car and be competitive because they don’t have that single-seater background.

"But I had that, [Paul] di Resta had it, [Gary] Paffett had it. We’d all be good enough."

Interview by Jamie Klein