Gary Paffett “lucky and thankful” after Norisring crash
Mercedes AMG driver Gary Paffett feels he was lucky to be unhurt after the heavy crash he suffered at the Norisring in last Sunday’s second race.
The Briton lost control of his Mercedes AMG C63 DTM in the braking zone towards Turn 1, collecting Mike Rockenfeller’s Audi RS 5 DTM.
“It was really scary,” said Gary Paffett. “I was going wheel to wheel with Jamie (Green) with the DRS open, and at the end of the straight we touched. As soon as you do that with the DRS open, you’re going to lose control, especially on the bumpy surface that you get at the Norisring. At that point, I was just a passenger really. I had two hard impacts with the barrier and then later on with Rocky in the corner,it was just really frightening. The car just kept hitting things hard over and over again. So it was pretty scary.”
Paffett was able to get out of the car unscathed and by his own means: “The medical team came over and did a quick assessment in the car. They wanted to do the extraction, but I felt OK and didn’t feel any pain in my back or my neck. I’m a bit bruised. I have various pains and a few cuts here and there. But in general, I’m still in one piece, which is really good after such an accident. I wanted to climb out of the car myself. For me, it was important to get out of the car and show everybody I was OK.”
Once again, the old adage “motorsport is dangerous” came to prominence, with Paffett highlighting the high safety standards in the DTM: “We keep saying how incredibly safe these DTM cars are nowadays. Here at the Norisring, we’ve seen just how safe they really are.You never want something like this to happen, but it’s motorsport, and such things do happen. We have to be thankful to the team for building a car that is so incredibly strong and safe.”
Gary Paffett is now looking ahead to the next round of the season in Moscow, on July 22nd to 23rd. Audi Sport are yet to confirm Mike Rockenfeller’s estimated recovery time, after suffering a small fracture on his left foot.
