In the latest round of the DTM championship Bromley’s Gary Paffett had a solid weekend with a top ten and an eleventh place finish.
Zandvoort played host to the latest round with 31,000 spectators watching two exciting race from the field including the experience Paffett.
The Mercedes-AMG driver, racing with the EURONICS Mercedes-AMG DTM team this season, was ninth quickest after first practice, the fastest Mercedes driver in the session. He continued with this pace in the second session, staying ninth fastest. In qualifying Gary scored fifth fastest lap, the lead Mercedes driver of the session.
The British driver lined up on the third row for the start of the first race. The 2005 champion was in fifth place until just before the finish and had a chance to improve even more. He was only about three and a half seconds off the lead at that point. However, Paffett went off track while battling for fourth place and dropped back down the field, finishing 11th at the chequered flag.
Speaking after race one, Gary said: “It was a good start. I got alongside Augusto (Farfus) on the outside of Turn 1, but he got pushed and I got pushed wide and, unfortunately, I didn’t gain any places. I stayed in P5. I managed to stay in his DRS which was the aim. The aim was to try and get him at the end, because he started to struggle with the tyres a bit.
“I had the DRS and he moved to the inside for Turn 7, braked a bit early, and I just misjudged his braking point and just touched the back, and that was it. It was unfortunate, really. I wasn’t trying to overtake him there I was just trying to get close. It was a shame.”
Gary qualified ninth for the second race of the weekend and starting from this position hoped to improve. However a slow pit stop lost the EURONICS driver time and by the end of the race he crossed the line in tenth position.
Giving his thoughts after the final race of the weekend, Paffett added: “Obviously starting from P9 was always going to be difficult. The start wasn’t great, but I didn’t lose too much on the others. Then we had a pretty slow pit stop which lost us a lot of time. The pace of the car was good. I had some good battles and generally it was an enjoyable race, but I would have liked to finish further up.”
Gary lies 10th in the DTM Drivers’ Championship and Mercedes-Benz lies second in the Manufacturers’ Championship. The next round of the DTM season takes place at Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria from 31st July – 2nd August.