Jamie Green took the win at the opening round of this year’s Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, leading all of race one at Hockenheim from pole position.
The British Audi Sport Team Rosberg driver started the race from pole, next to Pascal Wehrlein. He got a fantastic start off the line, and soon created a large gap back to the Mercedes driver.
As expected, many drivers went wide at turn 2, including Timo Scheider and Robert Wickins, who retired at the end of the opening lap due to damage.
At the hairpin halfway through lap 1, Wehrlein was attacked from behind by Paul di Resta and Edoardo Mortara, but managed to stay ahead. Meanwhile, Augusto Farfus, who had qualified 3rd but started 23rd due to a penalty, was making fantastic progress up through the field.
By the end of the first lap, Green led Wehrlein and di Resta by over 2.5 seconds.
On lap 3, 2014 champion Marco Wittmann went wide, allowing Adrien Tambay to pass. Wittman temporarily re-passed at the hairpin but Tambay got better acceleration out of the tight corner and remained ahead.
By lap 5, di Resta had made his way up to P2, and although he was pulling away from Wehrlein, there was still a very large gap to Green.
Tom Blomqvist, who was the first BMW on the grid, retired on lap 7 of his first ever DTM race. A few laps later, Miguel Molina retired because of a collision with Maximilian Götz.
By lap 12, Paul di Resta had reduced the gap to Green to 3.6 seconds, but this was about to get a lot smaller, as Daniel Juncadella became the next driver to retire. His car was parked in the gravel and forced the safety car to come out for a short amount of time, with 20 minutes of the race remaining.
On the restart on lap 14, Green got another good start, with di Resta, Wehrlein and Mortara following.
Mattias Ekström and Adrien Tambay passed each other a few times, and Tambay ended up going wide into the gravel, but it was Ekström who pitted with a puncture. He got a new set of tyres and restarted the race. Due to the safety car that was about to come out, he didn’t lose too much track position.
On lap 15, Martin Tomczyk spun into a frustrated Gary Paffett at the tight hairpin. Tomczyk was then T-boned by Lucas Auer who had no-where to go. The damage brought out the safety car for a second time.
The race restarted on lap 17 with 13 minutes to go. Once again, Green got a fantastic start, and as expected, there was contact at turn 2. This time, Götz spun due to contact with Christian Vietoris.
Not much happened in the last few laps of the race until lap 23, when Wehrlein passed di Resta at the hairpin to re-take 2nd position.
After 26 laps, Green took the chequered flag and his first win since the 2012 Norisring race.
In contrast to 2014, the BMW doesn’t look too strong this year, and the Audi seems to be the fastest car.
Race two will take place tomorrow at 13:43 CEST, 12:43 UK time and will last 60 minutes with a mandatory pit stop.
[table id=212 /]
