Gary Paffett hits out at driving standards and politics in the DTM

Gary Paffett put on a strong charge in the second race of the Zandvoort weekend to drive from the last row to finish fifth, but the Mercedes driver slammed Audi rival Mattias Ekström for brake testing him late in the race as Müller defended team-mate Mattias Ekström’s position ahead.

The British driver had initially qualified in seventh, but after his team fitted a tyre which was not allocated to him, the stewards sent him to the back of the grid.

“It was mostly a mega race, from P17. We didn’t expect much but we had a great strategy. We pushed to overtake and I was sixth out of Turn 1,” he said to TouringCarTimes.

Paffett was then stuck behind Müller for most of the race, who was guarding team-mate Mattias Ekström, who was struggling with pace with tyre pressure issues. On the last lap of the race, Paffett tried to make a move on Müller, but the Swiss defended, with both making contact.

“Towards the end, the two Audis in front of me were struggling,” added Paffett. “I overtook Müller on the outside and Eki (Ekström) brake tested me at Turn 1. Then he did the same at Turn 2 to let Nico back in. It wasn’t fair and I’m pretty disappointed with that.

“This is not how professionals behave. Brake testing people is not car racing. If you are in a position where you have a wounded car or damaged tyres, you get out of the way, you don’t sit there purposefully making people slow,” added the Team HWA driver.

Ekström was very slow after a problem in the first lap of the race, lapping over two seconds slower than the leaders. Asked if he could have overtaken the Swede, Paffett said: “He’s justified because he had Nico protecting him. Nico was going fast in places you have to be fast, and then slow in other places where you can go slow. They were very tactical, like what we saw yesterday.”

Paffett feels that the ITR should look into punishing what he considers to be unsporting behaviour: “We’ve seen too much of it. We saw it in Moscow with Nico Müller, who destroyed the whole race, we saw it yesterday with Farfus destroying the race to protect BMW, and now Nico again today.

“If Nico hadn’t been there I would have passed Eki quite quickly and gone far up the road. But Nico didn’t give me any chance to do that by purposefully blocking me, and then Eki did it again on the last lap. It’s not racing, it’s tactical and not what I like to see. It’s not the way I behave and certainly not what we do at Mercedes. It’s very disappointing to see they feel the need to do it,” added the 2005 champion.

Paffett also vented that this kind of behaviour is one of the reasons why Mercedes is leaving the DTM.

“No doubt,” he said. “I know that Mercedes is on a new racing strategy and that, but with all the politics going on, it’s another reason why they are going, because it’s not racing anymore. There is too much stuff going on, with the performance weights and things like that. A lot of the people involved in making decisions are not looking to help the series, but rather to help themselves, they are selfish and looking for their own advantage. We are at a stage where it’s vital for the series to look good, so this is really damaging.”