Mercedes’ Gary Paffett ‘surprised’ by penalty

Gary Paffett has admitted he was surprised to have received a two-second pitstop penalty for overtaking BMW’s Martin Tomczyk in Sunday’s DTM race at Spielberg.

The Mercedes driver again incurred the wrath of the stewards for the third time in as many races after he elbowed his way past Tomczyk in the early stages of the race for eighth place at Turn 3.

Whilst the RMG BMW driver was forced wide, no damage was done to his car and he was able to continue.

However, Paffett was issued a penalty which he believes was ‘questionable’ as a result of the move, especially when Marco Wittmann escaped punishment free after he banged wheels with Edoardo Mortara.

The incident occurred after the Audi driver’s final stop when he tried to overtake the BMW rookie for second. The impact damaged the RS5 and saw Mortara forced to pit again at the end of the lap. As a result, the Italian finished 15th from third on the grid.

“I got a penalty for the overtaking battle with [Martin] Tomczyk – that was questionable,” said Paffett.

“Instead of costing me two seconds at the first stop, it was more like five seconds.

“Considering how some other drivers treated me, I’m surprised that it was me who got a penalty.”

Paffett also believes that sixth place was possible, had it not been for the five seconds lost as a result of the penalty.

“I did a better lap on the harder tyre than the option but the five seconds we lost really cost us.

“We had the potential to be sixth, because we [had a better qualifying car this weekend], good pace in the race and we did a lot of things right.

“My pace seemed to be quite decent compared to the front-runners [and] our speed on the prime tyre was good.”

Paffett currently lies joint sixth in the championship with BMW’s Dirk Werner on 22 points.