Paffett also confirmed that he wasn't currently looking at following the lead of a number of British drivers – most notably Dan Wheldon – in looking to the United States to further his career, and said that he would prefer to put in a strong display in the upcoming test and in the 2006 DTM season to put himself in a position to fight for a race seat in
F1 for 2007.
"I think that [defending the DTM title] is pretty realistic at the moment," he said. "Ok, there might be some F1 testing opportunities around but there aren't really any race opportunities there for next year, and that's what I'm looking for. To go return to the DTM next year and defend my title would be great thing to do but to go back and win it two years on the trot, as people have shown before, is extremely difficult. I think it would be a great achievement to win it twice and it would put me in an even better position for
Formula One for 2007, where there will be some seats available.
"Formula One is where I really want to be right now, I haven't as yet looked at other opportunities. I think IRL and CART are quite interesting but at the moment they're not what I'm really looking at. Until the point comes where I'm definitely not going to be in F1 then I won't really be looking elsewhere, I'd be happy to be in DTM or to look towards Formula One for the future."
