Gary Paffett will no longer compete for Mercedes-AMG Team Mücke Motorsport in the 2021 DTM season. Travel restrictions and the Corona pandemic make a comeback for the two-time DTM champion impossible. Instead, AMG driver Maximilian Buhk, driving the #18 Mercedes-AMG GT3, which is equipped with the Space Drive digital steering system and has no mechanical connection at all between the steering unit and the steering gearbox, will finish the season. He had already deputized for Paffett in the first three races and several times finished in the top 10 of the strong DTM field.

Gary Paffett will not be able to start at the third DTM weekend in Zolder as planned. The two-time DTM champion lives in Great Britain and thus in a “red” classified Corona risk country and cannot enter Belgium without a ten-day quarantine. For various reasons, however, this is not possible for Gary Paffett. The Mercedes-AMG Team Mücke Motorsport has asked the Belgian embassy for a special permit. However, there was no positive decision within the time limit necessary for the operational planning.

Mücke Motorsport will not be fielding DTM champion Gary Paffett in the Space Drive cockpit at the DTM season opener in Monza. He will be replaced at the high-speed circuit in Monza next weekend and at the second race at the Lausitzring from 23 to 25 July by Maximilian Buhk, who was already behind the wheel for the tests at the Hockenheimring and in Monza a good fortnight ago. The #18 Mercedes-AMG GT3, with Space Drive steer-by-wire technology, which requires no mechanical connection at all between the steering unit and the steering gear, is an important part of the development programme of Schaeffler Paravan Technologie GmbH & Co. KG and Space Drive 3.