Gary Paffett

Paffett's life as a racing driver began at the age of nine with the usual basic training in karting. He stayed in this category until 1997, during which time he demonstrated his talent by winning two national junior cup titles. In his last year in karting, he ventured into formula racing and immediately won the title in the newcomer class in the Formula Vauxhall Junior Winter Series. Paffett then stayed in Formula Vauxhall and finished the 1999 season with the championship.

In 2000, he switched to the British Formula 3 Championship, which he won at the first attempt. By this time, he had long been in the sights of the Mercedes-Benz junior scouts and was offered a place in the German Formula 3 Championship in 2001. After a year of acclimatisation, he won seven races in the 2002 season and secured the title in convincing style.

With the third race of 2003 at the Nürburgring, Paffett became active in the German Touring Car Masters. With Team Rosberg, for whom he also raced in the previous year's Formula 3 championship season, he now drove an AMG Mercedes CLK-DTM. At the end of the year, he had four points to his name and was in 11th place in the final drivers' standings.

The British driver's promising debut season earned him a cockpit with HWA for the 2004 season. In the new AMG-Mercedes C-Class DTM, he made the most of the opportunity and impressively repaid the favour with four race wins and second place overall. The following year, Paffett exploited the potential he had gained to the full by securing the title of DTM champion in only his third year of participation with five wins in 11 races.

The Briton's stellar career led him straight to a contract as a full-time test driver in the McLaren-Mercedes Formula 1 team in 2006. However, the jump to the premier class remained without an offer for a regular cockpit, so he returned to the DTM in 2007, still involved in the Formula 1 racing team's test programme on a part-time basis.

The Persson Motorsport team offered him a place in a C-Class DTM year-old car, with which he even managed a victory at the second round in Oschersleben. Paffett finished the year in ninth place overall, the same position he held in the following season, his second year for Persson Motorsport and again driving a pre-owned car.

in 2010, he switched back to HWA and, in a season dominated by the C-Class DTM, took second place in the final drivers' standings behind his brand colleague Paul Di Resta, claiming three victories with the current model. In the following year, things went less smoothly without any top podium finishes and with seventh place in the overall standings.

The 2012 and 2013 seasons were mixed. First of all, Paffett was placed second in the drivers' standings again as the best Mercedes driver, while in 2013 he had to settle for sixth place in the drivers' standings in the new AMG-Mercedes C-Coupé DTM despite a race win at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz. The following year, nothing went right for Paffett and he only managed to finish in the top ten once during the entire season. That meant just five championship points and 22nd place in the final table.

In 2015, he joined the French team ART Grand Prix, and things were looking up again with the new Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM: ninth place in the final ranking. This followed an eleventh place in the overall standings with the same racing team in the 2016 season after two podium finishes. After Paffett had been a part-time substitute and test driver for the McLaren-Mercedes Formula 1 team up to and including the 2014 season, but without being able to contest a single Grand Prix, he switched to the Williams F1 team in this capacity from 2016, which also relied on Mercedes-Benz engines.

Following ART Grand Prix's departure from the DTM, Paffett was a driver in the HWA line-up in 2017. Although he was the third-best Mercedes-AMG driver, he only managed to finish 10th in the final drivers' standings with a single podium finish. But another DTM triumph for the Briton was not long in coming: 2018 was once again a Paffett year.

Thirteen seasons after his first championship title, he won the hard-fought race series for the second time thanks to three race wins and consistent top-10 finishes. In addition to the drivers' title for Gary Paffett, Mercedes-AMG Motorsport also secured the team and manufacturers' championships before the Stuttgart-based company ended its 30-year DTM involvement at the end of the 2018 season.

The Brit entered completely new territory with his entry into Formula E for the 2018/2019 season, in which he took over a cockpit with Team HWA Racelab and finished the season in 19th place with nine points.