Gary Paffett finishes the weekend on a high

Mercedes AMG driver Gary Paffett had a weekend of mixed emotions at the Lausitzring, host of the third round of the 2016 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season. Fortunately for the Briton, things went from bad to better, with the Team ART driver having a positive evaluation of the weekend.

Saturday was a difficult day for Paffett. Having qualified in 12th place on the grid, the Briton was set to fight for some points, but an incident with Audi Sport’s Adrien Tambay, who pushed him out of the track, ruined his chances. “After what happened in Spielberg with Timo Scheider, to come here and have Adrien doing something like this is really annoying”, Paffett said to TouringCarTimes. “He pushed me off and I lost seven positions. There wasn’t a lot I could do from then on, except to continue in the race and get to the chequered flag.”

Sunday was very different. The Briton from Team ART qualified in sixth place for the grid. During the race, he managed to climb up to third, but lost ground to the faster Audis of Mattias Ekström and Jamie Green. Paffett was fifth at the finishing line: “The race was good today. My initial target was to reach the podium. I had a little fight with Timo Scheider and I rubbed a bit on him, so I had some damage from that which made me lose some grip. In the last laps, both Mattias and Jamie were coming with fresher tyres and there was nothing I could do to hold them off. In the end I was fifth, which is a good result and some important points.”

The Briton also had time to congratulate fellow Mercedes AMG driver Lucas Auer, who scored his maiden win in the DTM today: “I take my hat off to Lucas. He had a fantastic weekend and got a great victory. I’m very happy for him and for Peter Mücke, they deserve this result.”

After the third round of the season, Gary Paffett lies 15th in the Drivers’ standings, with 22 points in his account, 36 behind team-mate and leader Robert Wickens.