Gary Paffett
| Gary Paffett | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Nationality |  British |
| Born | 24 March 1981 Bromley England |
| DTM career | |
| Debut season | 2003 |
| Current team | ART Grand Prix |
| Car no. | 2 |
| Former teams | Team Rosberg, Persson Motorsport, HWA Team |
| Starts | 130 |
| Wins | 20 |
| Poles | 11 |
| Fastest laps | 8 |
| Best finish | 1st in 2005 |
| Finished last season | 9th (89 pts) |
| Previous series | |
| 2005–12 2003 2001–02 2000 1998 1998–99 1997 |
Formula One testing International Formula 3000 German F3 British F3 FPA Winter Series Formula Vauxhall Junior FVauxhall Junior W. Series |
| Championship titles | |
| 2005 2002 2000 1999 1998 1997 |
DTM German F3 British F3 National Class Formula Vauxhall Junior FVauxhall Junior Class B FVauxhall Junior W. Series |
| Awards | |
| 1999 | McLaren Autosport Award |
Gary Paffett (born 24 March 1981 in Bromley) is a British racing driver in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. He is also a test driver for the McLaren Formula One team, but will leave at the end of the 2014 season. Paffett progressed through the ranks of karting and junior formulae in the United Kingdom, winning the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in 1999. He now lives in Ousden, Suffolk, England.
Contents
1993 to 1999: Early Years
In 1993, Paffett joined the British Cadet Championships and earned himself a respectable third place. A year later he moved to British Junior TKM Championship and finished second overall. In 1995, he won the British Junior TKM Championship and also second place in the Junior ICA European Championship. Successes continued into 1996, winning the McLaren Mercedes Karting Champion of the Future award and also second in the British Junior ICA Championship. The next year he moved into single-seaters, winning the Formula Vauxhall Junior Winter Series, picking up the best newcomer's award in that series in the process. In 1998, he was Formula Vauxhall Junior Class B Champion with thirteen fastest laps, thirteen poles and thirteen wins, dominating every race of the season. He also set a track record which had never before been set by any "B" class car. He got promoted to the Formula Vauxhall Junior and won the championship with two track records, four wins, five fastest laps, three pole positions. At the season's end he was awarded the prestigious McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year award.
Formula Three
Moving up to Formula Three, he competed in the Scholarship class of the British F3 championship, becoming champion with thirteen wins, thirteen fastest laps and thirteen pole positions. In 2001, moved overseas to the German F3 Championship racing with Keke Rosberg's race team, finishing sixth overall. Remaining in the series for 2002, he dominated the field winning the championship without ever losing the lead.
DTM
For 2003, Gary signed to drive for the new Brand Motorsport team in F3000, but the team withdrew from the series leaving Paffett and his team-mate Nicolas Minassian without drives. Mercedes contacted him and signed him to drive in the DTM with Rosberg's Mercedes AMG team in a year-old car, eventually finishing 11th overall. A year later, he was runner up with an up-to-date AMG-Mercedes C-Class and the HWA team taking four wins and one pole position. He was then champion the following year with five wins and four pole positions. In 2007, Gary returned to the DTM in a 2006 specification race car for the Persson Motorsport team alongside his McLaren F1 testing duties. At the second round at Oschersleben, Paffett became the first driver in the history of the series to win in a year old car.[1] After a further year in older machinery, he was promoted back to the current Mercedes model for 2009, and finished runner-up in the championship, behind Timo Scheider.
Formula One
In December 2005 it was announced that he would not be returning to the DTM series to defend his title but instead would test full-time for McLaren-Mercedes during the 2006 season alongside Pedro de la Rosa. After the departure of Kimi Räikkönen to Ferrari, it was speculated that he may have been in contention for a 2007 race seat in the team alongside World Champion Fernando Alonso. However due to the arrival of GP2 Champion, Lewis Hamilton, Paffett was overlooked for the drive.
Further to this, Paffett was released from his McLaren contract in October 2006, to search for better opportunities. It was widely speculated that he was likely to sign as a test driver at Honda, but Christian Klien was signed instead.[2] A few weeks later however, Paffett was re-signed by McLaren as the team's second test driver, alongside de la Rosa.[3]
He publicly stated that he was looking for a Formula One race seat for 2008,[4] and was linked with the abortive Prodrive F1 project for that season. However, Prodrive failed to make it to the grid so Paffett stayed with McLaren as a test driver.
Paffett was signed as Force India's reserve driver for the 2012 Australian Grand Prix as regular reserve driver Jules Bianchi was unavailable due to Formula Renault 3.5 Series testing commitments.[5]
On 17 November 2014, it was announced that Paffett would leave McLaren at the end of the 2014 season. This coincided with McLaren's switch to Honda engines for 2015.[6]
Racing record
Complete International Formula 3000 results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)
| Year | Entrant | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | DC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Brand Motorsport | IMO 14 |
CAT | A1R | MON | NUR | MAG | SIL | HOC | HUN | MNZ | 29th | 0 |
Complete Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
† - Driver did not finish, but completed 90% of the race distance.
1 - A non-championship one-off race was held in 2004 at the streets of Shanghai, China.
References
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- ↑ http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/116802
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.. |
- Official website
- Gary Paffett on TwitterLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Gary Paffett career summary at DriverDB.com
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | German Formula Three Champion 2002 |
Succeeded by João Paulo de Oliveira |
| Preceded by | DTM Champion 2005 |
Succeeded by Bernd Schneider |
| Awards | ||
| Preceded by | McLaren Autosport BRDC Award 1999 |
Succeeded by Anthony Davidson |
- Use British English from May 2015
- Official website not in Wikidata
- Interlanguage link template link number
- Use dmy dates from October 2010
- 1981 births
- Living people
- People from Bromley
- English racing drivers
- Formula Palmer Audi drivers
- British Formula Three Championship drivers
- German Formula Three Championship drivers
- International Formula 3000 drivers
- Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters drivers
- Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champions
- McLaren Autosport BRDC Award nominees
