Paffett: “It’s gonna be a real big challenge”

Ahead of the Hong Kong E-Prix, reigning Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champion Gary Paffett is looking forward to taking to the streets of Hong Kong despite the bad weather forecast.

Paffett joined Formula E off the back of a title-winning campaign in DTM, which handily came with HWA, the same team with whom the Englishman is making his foray into the all-electric series.

Now with four races of experience under his belt, the 37-year-old hopes that everything will soon come together for him and the team.

ERN: What are your first impressions during the track walk?

GP: “The weather is not quite what I expected, but I’ve enjoyed being in the city and with the track walk today I really can’t wait to get out on track now. I think it’s certainly the most challenging circuit we’ve had so far, it’s the first real street-circuit this season. I think this and with all the rain as well and all the white lines and the change in surfaces, it’s gonna be a real big challenge. It’s gonna be a tough weekend.

ERN: What are some of the big lessons you’ve learned so far from your time in the championship?

GP: “Every weekend I learn something new. In Saudi I learned not to crash early in the race (laughs). I think we’ve (HWA Racelab) learned a lot and we can put that learning to use and maybe get in the points this weekend. We’re taking steps and we want to take a big step forward at some point but we’re learning a lot and we’re just trying to put that learning into good use this weekend.

ERN: How do you think the progress has been like for HWA so far?

GP: “I think we’ve been making steps every weekend, but we’ve also had a problem or made a mistake or something else happens every weekend and we haven’t really put it all together. So, that was really disappointing but the test day we had after Mexico was good. We learned a lot there and I think we can put that to good use this coming weekend.

“But in a way I think it’s gonna be difficult because anything that anybody has learned is kind of not really valid in these conditions. It could be a bit of a lottery this weekend, but certainly going forward, we can learn from what we’ve experience so far. We’ve shown in qualifying sometimes the car’s pace has been good and even in the race the pace has been good, so we just need to put it all together.”