A sole point may have been less than he might have hoped for in front of his home crowd at
Brands Hatch last weekend, but the eighth place he achieved on British soil was just about the hardest-fought point Gary Paffett has ever earned.
Having qualified eighth around the Kent circuit behind the wheel of his 2007-spec Mercedes, the former series champion went on to battle energetically with countryman and Audi rival Oliver Jarvis for much of the early stages of the race, before emerging ahead and spending the final stint robustly defending his position from a determined Bernd Schneider – the latter with a current-spec C-Class at his disposal – to ultimately cross the finish line as the highest-placed driver in older machinery.
“I was obviously quite pleased,” Paffett reflected, speaking exclusively to
Crash.net Radio after the race. “It would have been nice to have done better, but in a year-old car – an '07 Mercedes – that's tough.
“Before the weekend we really didn't expect to be scoring points, so after all that to beat one of the new Mercedes' and all the '07 Audis was a great result. I was happy to get a point, and I hope we put on a bit of entertainment for the crowd.”
Indeed he did, and the 27-year-old also confessed to having drawn some inspiration from visiting Mercedes guest – and his McLaren-Mercedes
Formula 1 team-mate –
Lewis Hamilton, who recently joked that he doesn't allow anybody to pass him on the track.
“I think I've got the same motto as Lewis – we don't let anybody overtake us,” he affirmed. “Around Brands it's pretty difficult to overtake anyway, and I think that was definitely the thing. Bernd was pretty quick, but we managed to keep him behind us.
“It was a race situation, we're all grown men, we're all very tough racers and we were fighting for a position and a point. It does get tight, but that's what people want to see.”
![Gary Paffett - stern AMG Mercedes C-Class [pic credit: DTM Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/463003.jpg)
