Gary Paffett admits that he was ‘a bit disappointed’ with the opening DTM race at the Nürburgring on Saturday, where the Mercedes driver finished in third, despite reclaiming the championship lead.
Paffett had started the race from the front row of the grid alongside eventual winner René Rast, but the Brit lost out to BMW’s Bruno Spengler in the first half of the race as the Canadian had more pace early-on.
Paffett tried to come back at Spengler, but ultimately slipped back towards the end of the race and he had to defend from BMW’s Timo Glock as well to secure a podium finish.
“A podium is a good result for me today,” said Paffett. “My aim is to score as many points as possible in every race.
“I’m obviously a bit disappointed to have started from the front row and then only finished third – that’s not what I was hoping for.
“But René and BMW were very strong today. We now have to improve and find more pace. Then we can hopefully have a better day on Sunday.”
Ulrich Fritz, Head of Mercedes-AMG Motorsport DTM, was frustrated that most of the Stuttgart marque’s drivers slipped back in the field, blaming a change in the minimum tyre pressure regulations before the race.
The change was announced by tyre supplier Hankook in response to teams running ‘dangerously low’ tyre pressure strategies.
“Apart from Gary’s podium, we can’t really be satisfied with today,” said Fritz. “All our drivers lost positions in the race with the exception of Pascal [Wehrlein].
“That was partly due to one or two incidents that happened and to the newly specified minimum tyre pressures which didn’t suit our setup at all. That’s definitely something we’ll have to look at [for race two].”