Paffett: Results didn't reflect pace

ART Grand Prix's Gary Paffett has expressed his disappointment in not being able to convert the promising pace of his Mercedes C63 into a points haul he feels he deserved over the weekend.

Paffett's performance during free practice and qualifying had suggested a significant cluster of points was on the cards for the 2005 champion but a costly error in race one began to set the tone of his weekend.

The 34-year old dropped out of fifth position and speared into the gravel trap when jostling for fourth with BMW's Augusto Farfus on the very last lap of the first race.

His prospects failed to improve for the second race after an agonisingly slow pit-stop left Paffett destined for just one point in tenth position.

"Yeah, it's been unfortunate," Paffett told crash.net. "We've had a great car all weekend. The car was very good yesterday and obviously we didn't manage to get the points we deserved yesterday and today I just didn't really nail the lap in qualifying.

"We had the pace in the race but just started too far back. Obviously, the poor pit-stop cost us a lot during the race.

"In qualifying P6 was possible and that would have given us a chance of fighting at the front because our race was strong but we started P9 and it's very difficult to overtake here."

Assessing his chances for Spielberg in three weeks time, Paffett is in confident mood and believes losing some of the dreaded performance weight will allow Mercedes to challenge the in form BMW's.

BMW carried significantly less performance ballast than Audi and Mercedes at Zandvoort and the majority of the M4 fleet pressed home that advantage with a devastating clean sweep of pole-positions, podiums and victories.

"Getting amongst the BMW's right at the front on the grid was impossible because of the weight difference and the advantage that they had. They had almost half-a-second advantage on us," Paffett continued.

"Hopefully we can be very strong at Spielberg. We were very strong there last year, at least with Robert [Wickens] but it shows the car can be good there. We just have to get all the cars to same sort of pace.

"We haven't got the weight disadvantage now so we won't be quite as heavy. That should make it a good match. I expect us to be competitive. We should be going there looking to be fighting at the front and getting podiums," the Brit concluded.