More technical input at Audi is a plus
When Jamie Green left Mercedes at the end of 2012, he’d spent eight seasons in the DTM and finished in the top seven in the championship in every one of them, with a peak of third in his final campaign.
He took a while to settle in with Audi – hence his careerlow in 2013 and his rebuilding season in ’14 – but last year showed exactly what he could do. To his eight previous wins with Merc, Green added his first four successes with Audi. He took an early championship lead, only for a poor midseason run to derail his bid. Undaunted, he clambered from fifth to second in the points at the Hockenheim finale to go into the winter on a high.
Key to his improving form, says Green, is his switch away from the spotlight of Audi’s Abt Sportsline squad (for which he raced in 2013) to Team Rosberg, where he has gelled with engineer Eric Baumgartner, a veteran of the team from its days running Nico Rosberg and Gary Paffett in Formula 3.
For someone who wasn’t even allowed information about the set-up of his own car in his Mercedes days, Green is relishing getting involved on the technical side, and reckons he is improving as an overall driving package as a result.
The failure to win the 2015 title was down to a few technical niggles outside his control and getting the set-up wrong in the wet races. “I think I can do better this year than last year, and the overall championship result was just how it went,” says Green. “The championship result is something that will just happen one day when my luck’s in.”