Gary Paffett (Salzgitter AMG Mercedes C-Class) won the 2010 DTM's opening round at Hockenheim and began the new season like he had ended the previous one - with a victory. 

Gary started the race from pole position - the seventh of his DTM career.  He accelerated into an immediate lead ahead of Martin Tomczyk (Audi), Bruno Spengler and Jamie Green and despite losing this to Martin at the hairpin, managed to regain in time to take the chequered flag on lap 39 for his 15^th DTM win.

Gary was very happy with his great start to the 2010 season: "It is amazing. Yesterday I was on pole and today I won the race - a perfect weekend for Mercedes-Benz and for me. Our team did a great job and found the optimum set-up for the race; thank you to everybody.'  

Gary's team mates, Bruno Spengler (Mercedes-Benz Bank AMG C-Class), Jamie Green (Junge Sterne AMG Mercedes C-Class) and Paul Di Resta (AMG Mercedes C-Class) took positions two to four and completed a quadruple win for the Mercedes-Benz C-Class.  

Norbert Haug, Vice President Mercedes-Benz Motorsport said: "A dream start into the new season for us, four C-Class cars in the top four positions, a better outcome is hardly possible. A great result of a great race for Mercedes-Benz. Congratulations to Gary - he began the new season like he had ended the previous one here in Hockenheim - with a convincing victory. The key to success here in Hockenheim was the handling of the Dunlop tyres - and we managed that. Thank you to the HWA team under Gerhard Ungar and to our partners Mücke and Persson. Our C-Class was here a real „tyre whisperer‟. Today, David Coulthard ended up significantly better than in yesterday‟s qualifying and also our second rookie CongFu Cheng showed a solid race."  

This success marks Gary's 15th victory in his 60th DTM race; he has now won every fourth of his DTM races. For Mercedes-Benz, it is the 153rd win out of 321 races since 1988 - a winning rate of 47,6 percent.