DTM Brands Hatch: Green calls decision that led to penalty a 'joke'

Green led more laps than race winner Paul di Resta after choosing to leave his mandatory pitstop until lap 31 of 40.

Despite suffering a suspected slow puncture the lap prior to his pitstop he should have rejoined in a safe fourth, but a slow stop dropped him into the clutches of Pascal Wehrlein and he soon fell behind the Mercedes driver on his outlap, while BMW's Marco Wittmann was also able to get a run on Green exiting Graham Hill Bend.

Green moved across to defend the inside but in doing so forced Wittmann onto the grass, an incident that triggered his penalty as it was his second offence of the race.

His first came on the opening lap, when he was considered to have forced another BMW driver, Philipp Eng, off the road at Druids.

"I think there should be some common sense," said Green, who went on to finish 15th.

"I couldn't even see [Eng], it was only at the end of the exit [of Druids] I felt a little touch.

"That's the problem now - if you go to the outside of someone, and there's a very small overlap and you get knocked off, you can say 'I was forced off'.

"It's like football when you get touched and you dive. And they seem to always favour the person who was forced off."

He added: "In touring car racing, and with the visibility of these cars, you have to be very careful. We have to be a little bit more lenient, in terms of the amount of overlap is allowed until it is classed as forcing off, because I couldn't even see Eng in Turn 2.

"I got a drivethrough [for the Wittmann incident] because they saw it as my second offence. I think the first offence was a joke, to be honest."

Wittmann, who finished fifth, said he felt Green was in the wrong but stopped short of saying he deserved a penalty.

"I think he could have left me some room to live, let's say," said the two-time DTM champion.

"We have this rule that we give room to our next one, and that makes the racing great - wheel-to-wheel, side-by-side for more than just a corner, which we had in Hockenheim with Timo [Glock] and Gary [Paffett].

"He [Green] came out of the pits with cold tyres, I had the momentum out of Turn 3 [Graham Hill] with the hotter tyres. He moved completely over, I had to go on the grass, so it was quite a dangerous manoeuvre.

"If he could have left me some more room, it would have been good for me, and good for him because he wouldn't have had the penalty."