The success of British drivers in the past 20 years of the DTM has been considerable. Gary Paffett, Jamie Green and Paul di Resta tallied a combined 51 wins, 41 poles and three titles between 2004 and 2019. In eight of those 16 seasons, one of the trio was either champion or runner-up. Paffett came close to adding to his brace of titles on four occasions, in 2010 finishing second to di Resta in a British 1-2.
But, for the past 12 months, the German category that morphed from a manufacturer-based touring car series into a GT3 championship for customer teams has had no British drivers whatsoever. Green’s contract wasn’t renewed by Audi and he dropped off the grid at the end of the final Class 1 season in 2020, with Esmee Hawkey the sole representative when the DTM rebooted in 2021. She lost her drive when the T3 Motorsport Lamborghini squad disappeared after last year’s Lausitzring round.
