Gary Paffett

By Karl King
December 12 2009

Turning 29 in 2010, it is unclear whether Gary Paffett’s big break in F1 will ever come. A Mercedes-Benz man through and through, he raced in the DTM from 2003 to 2005, winning the championship in his final season.

After this, he was signed to become McLaren’s test driver for 2006 and focused exclusively on this. However, when he was overlooked for a race drive in 2007 in favour of Lewis Hamilton, the team released him from his contract to search for a race drive elsewhere.

When this ambition did not come into fruition, he seemed to be in contention to become Honda Racing’s test driver – a role that he presumably believed would give him a greater likelihood of taking a race seat in the future. However, when Honda signed Christian Klien, Paffett was re-signed by McLaren as a tester.

Paffett returned to the DTM with Mercedes in 2007 and has remained there since. He had a largely disappointing two seasons on his return, but was runner-up in 2009.

Due to having no race experience, Paffett is eligible to test in F1’s winter young driver tests.