Gary Paffett

Gary Paffett (born March 24 1981 in Bromley) is a British racing driver, and a test driver for Formula One team McLaren. Paffett progressed through the ranks of karting and junior formulae in the UK, winning the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in 1999. He now lives in Haverhill, England and is married with two sons.

1993 to 1999: Early Years

In 1993, Paffett joined the British Cadet Championships and earned himself a respectable third place. A year later he moved to British Junior TKM Championship and finished second overall. In 1995 he won the British Junior TKM Championship and also second place in the Junior ICA European Championship. Successes continued into 1996, winning the McLaren Mercedes Karting Champion of the Future award and also second in the British Junior ICA Championship. The next year he moved into single-seaters, winning the Formula Vauxhall Junior Winter Series,picking up the best newcomer's award in that series in the process. In 1998 he was Formula Vauxhall Junior Class B Champion with 13 fastest laps, 13 poles, 13 races, dominating every race of the season. He also set a track record which had never before been set by any "B" class car. He got promoted to the Formula Vauxhall Junior and won the championship with two track records, four wins, five fastest laps, three pole positions. At the season's end he was awarded the prestigious McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year award.

Formula 3

Moving up to Formula 3, he competed in the Scholarship class of the British F3 championship, becoming champion with 13 wins, 13 fastest laps, 13 pole positions. In 2001, moved overseas to the German F3 Championship racing with Keke Rosberg's race team, finishing 6th overall. Remaining in the series for 2002 he dominated the field winning the championship without ever losing the lead.

DTM

For 2003, Gary signed to drive for the new Brand Motorsport team in F3000, but the team withdrew from the series leaving Paffett and his team-mate Nicolas Minassian without drives. Mercedes contacted him and signed him to drive in the DTM with Rosberg's Mercedes AMG team in a year-old car, eventually finishing 11th overall. A year later, he was runner up with an up-to-date AMG-Mercedes C-Class and the HWA team taking four wins and one pole position. He was then champion the following year with five wins and four pole positions. In 2007, Gary returned to the DTM in a 2006 specification race car for the Persson Motorsport team alongside his McLaren F1 testing duties. At the second round at Oschersleben, Paffett became the first driver in the history of the series to win in a year old car. [cite news| title = The 10 Mercedes-Benz drivers| publisher = DTM| url = http://www.dtm.de/newsausgabe.php?id=5323| date = 2007-03-29| accessdate = 2007-04-20]

Formula One

In December 2005 it was announced that he would not be returning to the DTM series to defend his title but instead would test full-time for McLaren-Mercedes during the 2006 season alongside Pedro de la Rosa. After the departure of Kimi Räikkönen to Ferrari, it was speculated that he may have been in contention for a 2007 race seat in the team alongside World Champion Fernando Alonso, however due to the arrival of GP2 Champion, and McLaren prodigy, Lewis Hamilton, Paffett was overlooked for the drive.

Further to this, Paffett was released from his McLaren contract in October 2006, to search for better opportunities. It was widely speculated that he was likely to sign as a test driver at Honda, but Christian Klien was signed instead. [cite news| title = Klien gets the Honda test job| publisher = Grandprix.com| url = http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17773.html| date = 2006-11-15| accessdate = 2006-11-15] A few weeks later however, Paffett was re-signed by McLaren as the team's second test driver, alongside de la Rosa. [cite news| title = Lewis Hamilton joins Formula 1 World Champion Fernando Alonso at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes| publisher = mclaren.com| url = http://www.mclaren.com/mediaroom/information/pressreleases/lewis_hamilton.php| date = 2006-11-24| accessdate = 2006-11-24]

He has publicly stated that he is looking for a Formula One race seat for 2008 [cite web | title=F1 in the news | work=itv.com/f1 | date=2006-12-08 | url=http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=39055 | accessdate=2006-12-16] and was linked with the abortive Prodrive F1 project for 2008.

Racing record

Complete Formula 3000 results

() (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in "italics" indicate fastest lap.)

As of February 2008 he is ranked number 1 by career race win percentage on driverdb.com with 44 wins from 103 races (42.72%) well ahead of the great Juan Manuel Fangio in second (84 races 33 wins 39.29%) and Michael Schumacher in third (306 races 112 wins 36.60%).

References

External links

* [http://www.garypaffett.com/ Official Site]