Green targets title despite slow start

Green is hoping to emulate Gary Paffett's feat and become the second Englishman to win the DTM title.

He got off to a good start last weekend, by taking pole position for the season opener. However, after a tap from behind from Mercedes teammate Bruno Spengler at the start, he had to retire after the first lap because of an engine misfire.

With only ten rounds this season, Green admits that the retirement could cost him dear at the end of the season.

"I was happy to have a pole position, but I was hoping to score in all ten rounds," Green told autosport.com. "I will just have to have nine fantastic rounds. Last year there were eleven rounds, and it was a bit easier to make up the deficit.

"Mattias Ekstrom also didn't score and you would expect him to be a title contender but I don't know how bad it is going to affect me yet. We will have to wait and see.

"It wasn't my fault it was a technical problem. There was nothing I can do so I just have to look forward."

Green first noticed the misfire problem when he was leaving the pits to make the dummy grid.

"I had put some wet tyres on to scrub them in because we thought it could rain," he said. "I heard something funny coming from the engine and I noticed it was down on power but I wasn't completely sure because I was on wets and I wasn't going to quickly.

"We came in to change tyres and put on slicks and my engineers said he could hear the problem when I left the pits.

"I went off to do the driver parade and my other duties and my engineer said they had done everything they could to fix it in the meantime, but when I left on the formation lap I heard it again.  They told me to keep going because they thought it could fix itself, but it didn't.

"I then spun trying to get to the grid. I was trying to put some heat in the tyres and create some oversteer by letting the clutch out and causing the wheels to spin but I spun round. It was a bit embarrassing but wasn't a big a deal as it looks because I knew I wasn't going to last very much longer."

The 23 year-old was however encouraged by his pace during the weekend, because he believes it is impossible to tell how quick you are compared with the rest of the field during testing.

"The first weekend in the DTM is like the first weekend in Formula One," he added. "Before the season starts there are so many different ways of setting a car up you can't really judge how quickly people are going.

"You can't judge everyone's pace until qualifying when people are going as quick as they can. So obviously it is pleasing that during the first opportunity in qualifying I could be quickest and was topping the timesheets."