Paffett confirmed at AMG

Paffett joined the series three races into 2003, and immediately impressed with his pace in a year-old Team Rosberg CLK. He has now been promoted to its works AMG team for 2004, where he will team up with four-time champion Bernd Schneider, former F1 star Jean Alesi and last year's runner-up Christijan Albers.

Paffett's first duty as an AMG driver was to shake down its new four-door C-Class at Barcelona in Spain last week. The black machine completed 1,000km during the test.

"I'm really happy about my promotion to the AMG team, and I'm proud that they chose me to drive the new C-Class for the roll-out," he said. "I was impressed from the first lap. The car has great potential."

Alesi also drove the car at the test, and said: "Compared to the CLK, the C-Class is even easier to drive. It's basic set-up is very good and I feel really comfortable in this car"