Mercedes’ DTM season preview: Out to correct 2012

The 2012 DTM season could not have started any better for Mercedes and Gary Paffett; two wins from three races and a 40-point advantage after the Spielberg race seemed to assure the affable Brit a second DTM championship if he just finished the rest of the races.

Just finish the races. That was all. That was all it would have taken to claim the title. Come the season finale in Hockenheim, he appeared to have managed his task as he held a slim 3-point margin over BMW’s Bruno Spengler.

However, after a start which Paffett described as a ‘total disaster’ due to excessive wheel-spin and a slightly longer than necessary pitstop, the Brit finished the race in second, some two-seconds behind the menacing black BMW M3.

In a cruel twist of fate considering Paffett’s superiority at the start of the year, the Mercedes man would now finish as runner up, some four points behind Spengler, with BMW taking the DTM title in their first season back in the sport after a 20-year hiatus and the Canadian taking his maiden championship after eight seasons of trying.

Heading into the 2013 season, Mercedes could have easily been forgiven for being glum.

They had victory snatched from them at the last minute by their arch on-track and market rivals, and they had lost another experienced DTM hand in Ralf Schumacher who, despite being confirmed as one of the company’s six original drivers, decided to retire from racing and assume an advisory role with the Three Pointed Star’s newly rebranded – thanks to Ralf’s role -RSC Mucke Motorsport team.

In the absence of Schumacher, and with Jamie Green’s departure to Audi’s Abt Sportsline outfit, Paffett is now Mercedes’ only proven race winner has naturally assumed the role of team-leader for the manufacturer, who with an average age of 23, has the youngest driver line up of all the teams.

In addition to HWA stalwarts Paffett and Christian Vietoris, Robert Wickens and Roberto Merhi will join from the Mucke and now departed Persson teams, whilst rookies Daniel Juncadella and the 18-year old Pascal Wehrlein will join RSC Mucke in their debut seasons.

With the low average age and the lack of DTM experience from the rest of the drivers – excluding Paffett, Vietoris and Wickens are the only points scorers and have scored 45 points in a combined one and a half seasons – 2013 has the potential to be a difficult and expensive season for Mercedes. Throw in Paffett’s cruel last minute defeat and it becomes easy to rule the boys and girls at Stuttgart out of title contention before the season even starts on May 4 at Hockenheim.

But this is Mercedes. Don’t forget its C Coupe was the fastest car in the first half of last season after the team adapted quicker than Audi and BMW to the 2012 rule changes.

This is the same car which in addition Paffett’s two wins at Lausitz and Spielberg, saw Jamie Green claim a fourth victory from five at the Norisring.

Don’t forget that excluding the introduction of DRS and the option tyre, the technical specifications of the 2013 cars remain largely the same as last year.

As a result, Gary Paffett is confident he can claim the title back from Spengler and BMW.

“With the cars remaining pretty much the same from last year, I expect to be fighting for race wins and hopefully the championship” said last year’s championship runner up in an interview for Touring Car Times’ DTM season preview. “We had a competitive car from the first until the last race in 2012.”

Paffett could be forgiven for letting his head-drop following the season finale and allowing the two other championship deciding moments – a poor performance by Mercedes at Valencia, the other being when he was pitched into a spin by Martin Tomczyk’s BMW at Zandvoort – to cause some serious soul searching. Afterall, he could have resolved to change his approach to 2013 and pledge to do things differently this time around.

However, considering the C Coupe/Paffett combination was arguably the 2012’a best package, he intends to do nothing – absolutely nothing differently – this time around and has turned defeat into a personal victory over the winter.

“I haven’t tried to change anything about my approach for 2013,” he admitted to TcT. “It [missing out on the title] was very hard to take at first, [but] now I feel great makes me even more determined to win in 2013.

“Losing the title in the way we did definitely makes us want to win it even more this year.”

His refusal to dwell on the past was also echoed by Mercedes Motorsport’s head, Toto Wolff. At the Hockenheim test session, the Austrian hit back at criticism of the marque’s young driver line up by rather tartly commenting “statistics aren’t really my thing,” before praising Mercedes’ pre-season preparation after the team set the fastest times on three of the four days at the Barcelona test in March.

“Our preparation has been very good and intense,” he continued. “Our line-up has been reduced by two drivers to a total of six and, above all, rejuvenated.”

Despite Stuttgart’s resolution to correct 2012’s events, Paffett has kept a lid on expectations for the team.

“It’s always difficult to know where you are just by looking at testing times so we will have to wait until May the 4th to really see where we all stand. We set the fastest times on three of the four days at Barcelona in the previous test [before Hockenheim] and we weren’t thinking ‘hey, it’s in the bag.’”

Whilst the jury is still out on Mercedes’ decision to gear its 2013 assault towards youth and not experience, you can be sure that Gary Paffett will be doing his utmost in 2013 to correct 2012. Very, very sure.

Mercedes line up for 2013:
Car:
DTM AMG Mercedes C-Coupe
Teams and drivers:
HWA Team: Gary Paffett (GB)/Roberto Merhi (ESP)/Christian Vietoris (DE)/Robert Wickens (CND)
RSC-Mucke Motorsport: Daniel Juncadella (ESP)/Pascal Wehrlein (DE)