Double DTM champion Gary Paffet has joined an expanded Cupra Kiro Formula E team in a newly created role of racing director.
The Race can reveal that former McLaren Formula E team manager Paffett started his new role last Monday, and will work closely with team principal Alex Hui and chief operating officer/deputy team principal Russell O'Hagan.
Paffett had been looking for new roles before McLaren's future in the all-electric world championship was brought into question earlier this year. Attempts for the team to continue in another guise were ended in early July when an investor/rescue package could not be sourced.
Speaking to The Race this week, Paffett confirmed he had been speaking to Hui and O’Hagan "very early" during the 2024-25 season and wanted to explore "a new challenge to be involved in the performance side of a team, rather than a team manager role" that would be "just a more hands-on role with driving a team forward and getting results".
Paffett is one of several new recruits at Kiro, with more new faces expected to be unveiled in the coming weeks amid a general strengthening of the team after it was acquired by the Forest Road Company last autumn, which in turn brought a commercial and marketing partnership with Cupra and a technical partnership with Porsche.
"We're still trying to find our feet and find the best use of all the people we have in that restructure from being a manufacturer to a customer," added Paffett.
"That's a process that we're going through now. But you can tell the team is really ambitious and looking to try to improve the performance. Winning just fuels your energy to do that more often.
"And that's what I can feel here. Everyone is really ambitious and trying to look at ways we can just improve the team to get more out of them next season. That will be a big part of my job."
Along with Hui, O'Hagan pinpointed Paffett to help spearhead a stronger team from the 2025-26 season onwards, and said that Paffett's racer-to-operational/management transition set him apart.
Paffett raced for the HWA team that conducted an exploratory Formula E campaign in 2018-19 then took up the role of sporting and technical advisor when it became the Mercedes EQ team the following season.
"We sat down 12 months ago and just decided not to get too role-focused, not to get too specific because we wanted to go out and get the best people," O'Hagan told The Race.
"Because we're transitioning with so many other things and we have a really good core, long-term network of staff, and we have lots of flexibility, I think via Gary's skillset, as soon as his name came up we were very interested to have him.
"In terms of driver-centric information, that's quite rare and then typically, when you have a driver transition into management, it quite often ends up being at the very top level. But Gary is broader than that.
"I think, honestly, it puts Gary almost in a kind of pool of one, basically. So, we're very pleased to have secured him."
Legendary paddock figure exits
One of Formula E's longest-serving management figures, Roberto Costa, has left his role at Cupra Kiro having been at the entry since it was formed as Team China Racing 12 years ago.
Costa has missed only a handful of the 148 races that have been held since 2014 and was a major part of the 2014-15 title-winning operation that helped Nelson Piquet Jr to the inaugural Formula E crown.
Prior to Formula E, Costa was the technical director of the Piquet Sports GP2 team. But he actually began his Formula E work at the Abt organisation, before joining Team China Racing (TCR) at the behest of Piquet and the Campos Racing squad that ran the team operationally.
Since that time, Costa has been an ever-present as either an engineering co-ordinator or team manager.
"Roberto has been an excellent colleague but I think head and shoulders above that he's just been a wonderful human being," said O'Hagan.
"If you walk through the paddock, he's probably one of the most-liked people and one of the most-well connected."
In particular, O'Hagan paid tribute to Costa's can-do attitude - which included several examples of leadership through difficult times at the team which became NIO, NIO 333 and ERT after its initial period as TCR and NEXTEV.
"You can always judge people the best by how they deal with difficult times," added O'Hagan.
"And I think Roberto's longstanding commitment to the team in what has been a pretty tricky period, and the fact he's always done it with grace, has been extraordinary. And he's always done it with a smile on his face.
"Even at Berlin [in 2022], we had seven members of the team with COVID on the flight over and he sorted it all out and everything's done with a smile.
"We said farewell to him unofficially last Friday, and the honest sentiment is that this will always be Roberto's team in many respects.
"He's been a big part of the last 10 years, and his approach to everything culturally has kind of all spread between us now."
