Green beats Audi in Norisring thriller

Green's achievement was all the more impressive given that the Briton was driving a 2008-specification Mercedes - it was only the second time a year-old car has won a DTM race (stablemate Gary Paffett was the first at Oschersleben in 2007).

Green had sat in third for most of the final stint behind Scheider and Bruno Spengler, having put in a very strong middle stint to get himself into contention during the pit stops.

There had been little action at the front, but the battle at the front then exploded into life when Spengler finally attacked Scheider at the final corner with five laps to go, grabbing the lead.

The Canadian then overshot the first corner on the next lap, losing out to Scheider and Green in the process. Spengler was then left to fend off Mattias Ekstrom, who had slowly caught the leaders in the closing stages.

Ahead of them, Green briefly got alongside Scheider in the middle of Turn 1 with two laps to go. They were side by side out of the corner with the Mercedes on the left, before Green jinked back to the right to have the inside for Turn 2.

They went through the corner together, with Green then chopping across the front of the Audi to take the lead at Turn 3.

Spengler was able to follow him past Scheider at the same point, while Ekstrom also picked off the reigning champion.

The battle between the top four had allowed Gary Paffett, Ralf Schumacher and Paul di Resta to close up as well. Despite a small error from Scheider at Turn 1, he was able to keep the remaining Mercedes at bay, and less than four seconds covered the top seven at the finish.

Pos  Driver              Car           Time/Gap
 1.  Jamie Green         Mercedes  1h08m39.223s
 2.  Bruno Spengler      Mercedes     +  1.357s
 3.  Mattias Ekstrom     Audi         +  1.678s
 4.  Timo Scheider       Audi         +  2.626s
 5.  Gary Paffett        Mercedes     +  2.940s
 6.  Ralf Schumacher     Mercedes     +  3.250s
 7.  Paul di Resta       Mercedes     +  3.807s
 8.  Tom Kristensen      Audi         +  9.266s
 9.  Mike Rockenfeller   Audi         +  9.787s
10.  Susie Stoddart      Mercedes     + 14.423s
11.  Martin Tomczyk      Audi         + 29.331s
12.  Katherine Legge     Audi         + 30.430s
13.  Markus Winkelhock   Audi         + 30.931s
14.  Mathias Lauda       Mercedes     +   1 lap
15.  Christian Bakkerud  Audi         +   1 lap

Retirements:

     Maro Engel          Mercedes  46 laps
     Alexandre Premat    Audi      36 laps
     Tomas Kostka        Audi       1 laps
     Oliver Jarvis       Audi       0 laps