Gary Paffett: DTM star on the verge of F1?

A couple of years ago Gary Paffett seemed destined for a quick rise to the top. He won the German F3 Championship with Keke Rosberg's team in 2002, did a bit of testing for McLaren, and landed an F3000 drive with the new Brand Motorsports team for 2003.

Alas Brand proved to be a false dawn, and after a difficult first weekend at Imola the team decided it didn't like F3000, stranding Paffett without a drive. His connections led to a second-string Mercedes DTM drive with Rosberg, and despite missing the first two races, he showed well.

This year he's regained momentum after moving up to the big time in the frontline AMG Mercedes squad, and he has been on the pace all season. A frustrating disqualification from victory at the Lausitzring has damaged his title hopes, but he's certainly got himself noticed. This week Peter Sauber confirmed that Paffett is on his least of candidates for 2004.

It's perhaps not surprising that the Swiss team boss keeps a closer eye on the DTM than some of his British counterparts, and the fact that his former drivers Jean Alesi and Heinz-Harald Frentzen are both competing gives him a pretty good benchmark. Perhaps his old pals at Mercedes have been giving him inside info as well.

Paffett is more than happy with the way his season has unfolded: "I think it's gone better than we expected at the start of the year. We had an excellent start, winning the first race, and we knew we'd have to put a bit more work in to try and keep it up. But every circuit we've gone to, we've kept up the pace, and we keep winning races. So it's gone exceptionally well, really, and we hope to carry in to the end of the season.

"It's obviously very hard, and there are some big names. Frentzen's come in this year, but Opel have had an issue with the car and have a bit more work to do. But Mercedes and Audi have both got very good cars this year, so it is very tough. I've got three very good team-mates, with good equipment. Being the new boy in the team, it's incredibly hard for me every weekend, trying to get on the pace with them. It's a case of having to learn to drive a bit of a different car and beat three very experienced guys."

What has really caught the eye is how Gary has fared against his colleagues in the AMG organisation.

"I think the thing is with the team is we've got three different tyres of competitor. There's Bernd Schneider, whose probably the most experienced DTM driver around, and has won the most championships, there's Jean Alesi, whose got more experience than anyone else in F1, and Christijan Albers, whose a young and up and coming racer, but has done two years more than me in DTM. So I've got three very different team-mates, but they're all pretty quick."

The likelihood is that the Lausitzring disqualification will cost Paffett the title. The loss of a hard-earned victory there was frustrating in the extreme.

"The car ran out of fuel on the in-lap. When they did the fuel check there wasn't as much fuel left to check as it states in the regulations. We said there was no advantage gained, because the weight was fine, everything else was fine. They had enough to check, and it wasn't illegal, but the regulations say one and a half litres, and there wasn't enough. It was a tough decision to take all the points away. Next time I'll stop after the flag, but they'll probably exclude me for not getting back to the pits under my own steam! I think we've learned a few lessons from that.

"As they say, in motor sport these things happen. It's very disappointing for the championship, and it's made a massive difference. If we had kept the points we've been five behind the lead, but now we're 17. It was a big shame because it was an excellent race. We'd had a pretty bad qualifying, so to come from seventh on the grid to win the race was amazing, and to have it taken away right at the end was quite disappointing."

So what of the future? Clearly Gary will have no problems making a long-term career in DTM, but F1 is obviously where he wants to be. This is perhaps his best chance, before he gets typecast as a tin-top driver, and while he enjoys the momentum created by being so quick in his first proper season.

"It is difficult, but we haven't given up yet. We're always looking to see what's happening in F1, and there's obviously a lot of positions changing this year. It seems to me there's a lot more movement inside F1 rather than people coming in from outside. We're still looking at a lot of teams and talking to a lot of teams. We're working to try and get something happening."