McLaren Mercedes test driver Gary Paffett was honoured at the Goodwood Festival of Speed when he became the first driver to be awarded the Dunhill ‘Future Champion' award.
Paffett, the reigning DTM champion, was given the award in recognition of his success in the German based series in 2005 and admitted he was honoured to have been selected ahead of a number of a variety of other young British stars.
“There are a lot of good British drivers coming through and to have beaten them off to claim the award is an honour and it shows that people are looking at what I am doing,” he told
Crash.net Radio at Goodwood. “It's basically an award aimed at British drivers destined to go on to big things. I've won the DTM title and am now an F1 tester so the future, hopefully, sees me in
Formula One and fighting for Formula One titles.
“The award is there to try and give a young driver support into the higher levels of motorsport which, in my opinion, is very needed. The BRDC have done as much as they can to support young drivers but the funding isn't there anymore for them to put too much in, so for someone to have the incentive to get behind British drivers is great and it is an honour to be the first person to win the award.”
Former F1 driver Martin Brundle, who now manages Paffett through the 2MB company he runs with
Mark Blundell, was also proud to see one of his drivers honoured.
“It's great for Gary and he deserves it,” the
ITV-F1 commentator said. “If you look at his CV, he has won in everything he has done but with no money and no budget. He hasn't had the path laid out for him in sponsorship so full marks to Gary, he has just about made it to the top and lets hope we can now get him an F1 drive.
"It's possible and the focus with
Nico Rosberg going so well is now more and more on the younger drivers. There is going to be a watershed in the coming seasons and this year has been a funny one as I think 16 of the grid were out of contract for 2007 at some point.
