Gary Paffett: Me, my life and the season ahead

In just a few days' time, I will be rolling out of the Hockenheimring pit garage in my Mercedes-AMG C 63 in its brand new shape and style - probably the best-looking DTM car I have ever driven.

And I've driven a lot of DTM cars, given that this is going to my 13th season in the series. But before we get too far ahead, I would like to take you back in time a bit - just 25 years!!

The beginning

Gary Paffett

Photo by: Nikki Reynolds

I started racing karts at the age of 9, my father being a big motorsports fan, as well as a decent club driver himself. His passion led him to buying me a go-kart and that's how it all started for me.

I come from a pretty modest background and so we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on my racing. But after two successful seasons in the British national championship, I had been spotted by one of the big British karting teams.

This was lucky timing - by then, my dad had spent most of his money. From that point onwards, my career was supported by Zipkart and Martin Hines, who continued to back me until I was well into car racing, winning the German F3 championship in 2002.

I was a normal kid from a little village in rural England. I don’t come from a rich family and I didn’t have a professional racing driver as a father - just two hard-working parents and an older sister.

We travelled around the country as a family with all the equipment in the back of a van and we slept in a tent. It was such a great time, having fun racing with friends, with no politics to speak of. And that was when I my now wife Lisa - at a kart circuit, when I was 14.

I came through the junior karting series, winning multiple British championships along the way and made my move into single-seater car racing in the winter of 1997.

I won the Formula Vauxhall Junior B and A championships in 1998 and 1999 respectively and moved to Formula 3 the year after.

2001 marked my first time in a series outside of the UK when I entered German F3. And what a massively tough change it was for myself - working with a team that spoke a foreign language that I didn’t understand and being far away from family and friends.

However, Team Rosberg - who I was racing for - did their best to make me feel very welcome and it would turn out to be the best decision of my life.

I won the German F3 crown in 2002 and got a call to test for Mercedes-Benz in a DTM car at the end of the season.

The test went well and, soon enough, I was a DTM driver, piloting a year-old Mercedes-Benz car, run again by Team Rosberg.

At the time, I wasn’t sure where the DTM path would lead. And I certainly would have never thought that I'd still be here 13 years later.

About me

Gary Paffett, Mercedes-AMG DTM Team HWA AG

Photo by: Mercedes AMG

I grew up a regular kid and, these days, I think I’m still the same person. I may have been able to buy a bigger house and a bigger TV but I’m still very much grounded and true to my roots.

I don’t crave the fame that comes with being a top sportsman and am very often overwhelmed by the sheer number of fans that turn out to get autographs and pictures.

I live with my wife of 10 years and best friend Lisa and our three sons - Harvey, Freddie and Alfie. We settled in in an 18th century farmhouse in a little village in rural Suffolk.

We love the quiet of the countryside and are well-known for having a few animals around the house, to the point where my good friend Mattias Ekstrom refers to our place as the “Farm”.

I have always been super competitive at everything I do and I think that’s why I have been so successful in my racing career - I just can’t stand losing.

I played what sports I could between my karting when I was young and still play as much sport as I can now. We regularly head down to the tennis courts, or go for a round at the local golf course.

As long as it’s a competitive sport - count me in, as I will try my hand at anything and everything. And that competitive nature has rubbed off on our three boys - they play an incredible amount of sport and I am rarely far from the edge of the pitch or court cheering them on.

At school they play rugby, hockey and cricket - and they play tennis at the Haverhill Tennis Club just up the road from us. I really enjoy being a part of their development, so much so that I recently joined the committee at the tennis club and now manage one of the junior tennis teams that two of my kids play in.

But although I am as competitive as anyone I know, I firmly believe in fair play. There is a fine line between winning fairly and winning at all costs, as the latter, at times, may mean doing something unfair or against the rules.

There have been times in my career where I could have achieved more if I had taken more risks or been more ruthless. But I always try to act with respect for the rules and my competitors - and if you ask every one of my DTM colleagues, they will confirm that.

As such, there are a few things that I really don’t like about the sport that I compete in. For one, there is too much politics involved in top-level motorsports. And not everyone is quite as honest and truthful as I like people to be.

I trust every single one of my current Mercedes-AMG DTM teammates tto be truthful and trustworthy - but it hasn’t always been this way. Some of my ex-teammates have been very hard to work with and, when they moved on, the team became a better place for it.

The season ahead

Gary Paffett, ART Grand Prix Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM

Photo by: XPB Images

2015 was an interesting season for me. I had previously been with HWA since 2009 (and I was with them when I won the title in 2005), so when the decision was made for me to move to DTM newcomer ART Grand Prix, I had mixed feelings.

It was tough leaving the team I had been with for so long and I didn’t know any of the people at ART apart from Fred Vasseur. But I chatted with Fred before the decision was made and his ambition and drive for the DTM project put me at ease. ART have been so successful in every series they have competed in and they have the same aim in the DTM.

Right from the start, I was really impressed with the whole team - our crew of engineers led by Gaetan Jego are really talented and the mechanics work as hard as I have ever seen.

We had a few early-season problems - "teething trouble", you might say - but we quickly got up to speed and were regularly the fastest Mercedes car out there.

No, we didn’t get a race win - but with three podiums and the pole position for the final race of the season, we achieved everything we wanted to for our first season together in the DTM.

Now, 2016 is here - and we are much more prepared than we were at this point last year. The team has had a year to familiarise themselves with the series and to figure out how to get the performance out of the car.

We have a new bodyshape this year which reflects the new shape of the C Coupe road car, which, admittedly, has given the designers and engineers a bit of work to do to match the performance of last year's car.

The pre-season testing went OK. We had some reliability issues, which cost us quite a lot of running, but the performance looked fine and I was happy with the amount of work we manged to get done in such a short amount of time.

DTM Drivers' Assosication

Gary Paffett, Mercedes-AMG Team ART

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

As always in the DTM, it's going to be a really close fight throughout the whole grid.

And with BMW being given their “allowances” [a decreased base weight] to give them a better chance, it could be a tough first weekend for us at Hockenheim.

I’m not really in agreement with what BMW have been allowed to do as I think it’s a bit unsporting, but I guess the decision makers felt they had to do something to keep them happy after they struggled for most of last year.

There have also been a few minor changes to the sporting rules to try and improve the racing this year. Along with Timo Scheider and Martin Tomczyk, I am one of the three manufacturer representatives in the DTM DA (DTM Drivers' Association), which was established to try and get the drivers involved with the rulemaking process.

We have been busy all winter, working with the DMSB and the ITR to help give them our feedback as to what we think could help the series.

As such, we are a bit frustrated that a lot of our points - which we feel would have brought something to the DTM - haven’t been implemented, or even considered. However, we are a new entity and hope to be more influential in the years to come.

The change to the DRS usage should improve the racing and the new weight system should help to bring the cars to a nearly identical level, which means the focus will be more on the driver.

But don’t expect there to be too much of a difference compared to how things were in 2015.

This season is going to be tough - which is no surprise given the level of talent in the series - but you can trust that I will be giving it everything to try and secure my second DTM championship in 2016.

Gary Paffett, Mercedes-AMG Team ART, Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM DTM

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz