Green: I caused Di Resta spin 01 | 07 | 2014
WHILE BATHGATE'S PAUL DI RESTA acknowledged that good friend Jamie Green has admitted causing Sunday's spin in the DTM race at the Norisring, the Scot remains disappointed with the incident.
After three laps behind the safety car in the build-up to the rain-affected race, Green's Audi tapped the rear-left of Di Resta's Mercedes midway through the tight left-hand hairpin on the way to the rolling start of the race.
Di Resta, who had qualified second-fastest on the grid, immediately ahead of Green, was sent into a slow-motion spin on the treacherous surface, eventually rejoining a distant 10th, with his car damaged.
While Green ultimately received a five-second penalty for causing the incident, he finished the race second, while Di Resta struggled to finish a distant 15th.
"Jamie's one of my best friends," the Scot admitted. "It's hard. We train each day together and live very close to each other.
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"It's going to be a hard one. He's wasted the best opportunity I'm probably going to get all year: a chance of winning a race or being on the podium, given the car that we had. The race hadn't even started when he hit me:. we were still 400 metres away from the startline.
"People can see what happened. At least Jamie can stick his hand up for it. But when you see that he's finished second and not lost anything out of it, that's the thing that bothers me."
Green admitted it was his own "misjudgement" that caused the incident.
"I had an incident with Paul, which is a nightmare because we're good mates," the Monaco-based Englishman said.
"We're friends away from the track, we spend time together training and stuff. To have an incident on track isn't nice at all.
"Obviously it was a misjudgement from my point of view. I was a bit surprised at the way he went wide on the corner and then cut back. I was already on the inside, and he came very tight on the exit.
"The contact was very, very light, but just at that point where he is turning and picking up the throttle. He went across the front of me in slow motion.
"Clearly I need to apologise. I didn't do that on purpose — you can't overtake until the start/finish line anyway — but I was trying to get nice and close for the start. I was a bit surprised by his apex speed and line. That's what happened."
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Jim McGill