Paffett happy with outside title chance

Gary Paffett heads into the final round of the season the outsider for the championship, but is happy to still be in the running and admits there’s less pressure from the top, with three Mercedes drivers battling for the drivers title – and also expects the new Mercedes car will be testing mid-2011.

“I’ve been an outsider for the championship for the last three races really, so the fact that I’m still in with a chance is still good,” Paffett said to TouringCarTimes.

“I’ve won two races, and I’ve scored points in every race, but yeah, I’ve got to basically win with Bruno not scoring many points and Paul not scoring any.”

“There’s less pressure on the team when it’s three Mercedes battling for the championship, we’ve already won it, so there’s less pressure on the team to get a result as we haven’t got the threat of being beaten by another manufacturer, but I think for the drivers, you still want to beat the other guys whether they’re driving for Audi or Mercedes, so I think for the drivers the pressure for the championship is the same no matter who you’re fighting with.”

The DTM returns to Shanghai for the first time in six years, and after a few issues with the track last time out, and a very different type of race to end the season on, Gary expects an unpredictable end to the season.

“There’s obviously concerns, it’s a different circuit to where we raced in 2004, it’s a different part of the city and it’s an unknown entity. For the championship to go down to the last race which is a brand new street circuit in Shanghai in November, that’s amazing, it shows how international the DTM is.”

“The weather’s going to be pretty cold and the circuit’s a street circuit so it’s going to be pretty dirty, pretty fresh – and a complete unknown, it sort of evens the playing field a bit.”

On the future of the DTM, as the series race calendar continues to expand across more countries, and with new manufacturers and regulations coming in, Gary see’s a pretty bright future for the DTM.

“It’s looking great, BMW have confirmed their entry for 2012 and the whole project and the new car wer’e bring out in 2012 is fantastic.”

“They’re (Mercedes) hoping to have the first chassis out in the middle of next year, the chassis and a lot of the components are going to be standard components for all the cars, so it’s a case of manufacturers putting their own engine, suspension and a few aeroparts and body on obviously.

“The guys that are designing it aren’t 100% sure what sort of body shape they’re going to run yet, whether it’s a four door or back to coupe’s, so that’s still a question, but the main parts – the gearbox is going to be a Hewland gearbox and the chassis is going to be a carbon monocoque made by one company so the main parts are being homologated and sorted out now, but I think it’ll probably be the middle to late part of next year till we get a car on the track.”