Gary Paffett was the beaming winner of the DTM's exhibition race in China today [Sunday].
The Briton pulled off a magnificent start-finish triumph in his AMG-Mercedes C-Class on the 2.84 kilometre-long street circuit in Shanghai for an advantage of 0.887 seconds over his team-mate Bernd Schneider.
"It was an incredibly tough race," said Paffett. "I had a pretty comfortable advantage after the accident behind me in the first bend. I didn’t accelerate too much as the temperature of my engine was very high. Later, when Bernd got closer, I had to give my all in order to stay in front."
Paffett dominated the action at the front of the pack from the onset of the race and although Schneider was able to make up lost ground, he never really seriously challenged his young team-mate.
"I would never have expected a second place after such a qualifying," added Schneider. "I had a great start today and a fantastic race. I was lucky that I didn’t touch the wall once this whole weekend, which means we can now prepare for the race on the Nürburgring without any hindrance."
The three Audi drivers, Tom Kristensen, Emanuele Pirro and Martin Tomczyk - the best-placed Audi drivers in qualifying - were eliminated in the melee at the start after bumping into each other.
Mattias Ekström meanwhile battled his way forward over the 22 laps past Jean Alesi and Rinaldo Capello into third place.
"The race here in Shanghai was great fun," noted Ekstrom. "I started out in ninth position and already made it into fifth after the first lap following those accidents in front of me. I then overtook Capello and Alesi and drove home into third place. It’s a great result to have started in ninth position and to end up on the podium, especially here in Shanghai."
Heinz-Harald Frentzen, whose contract extension with Opel for the 2005 season was announced today, held onto sixth place for a long time before ultimately settling for seventh.
