Pastor Maldonado

Courtesy of Planet F1 and Tranquility's post in the Belgian PQR thread here's a place to discuss the Williams' No.2

"Is Pastor Maldonado the scariest man in sport? His post-Spa interview was delivered with a stare that could put a weak-hearted man six foot under from a distance of ten yards and culminated in the remarkable, utterly-terrifying announcement that he regards Lewis Hamilton as "a really good friend."

Jeepers.

Just jeepers.

Fear and pray for his enemies."

Pastor started his racing career in Italy in the Formula Renault and F3000. He would have been Formula Renault 3.5 Champion if he hadn't been disqualified from a win at Misano in 2006. Moving on to GP2 Pastor raced for 4 seasons, eventually taking the title in 2010.

With not insubstantial financial backing from Venezuela's national petroleum company, PDVSA, he took Nico Hulkenberg's seat at Williams for 2011 winning his first point last weekend in Belgium.

On a personal level, he is a self proclaimed Socialist and a personal friend of controversial Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, which probably explains the backing from PDVSA.... Oh, and he's 26 and is still wearing braces on his teeth.

 

[F1ang-o]

..
Did he give an interview saying that it wasn't his fault?

 

[racecub]

Oh dear, oh dear. He placed blame jointly on Hamilton and Perez. He was thinking about them and it put him off.

 

[Brogan]

What it does display is an inability to appreciate how the tyres and surface are working together and a lack of foresight to get a feel for the conditions first.

 

[The Artist.....]

.... It also shows that running demos with rock hard tyres on very dusty venezuelan roads is not a good idea either!!!

 

[teabagyokel]

There's only one driver who could have done that, isn't there?

 

[Speshal]

There's that old adage "he could start a fight in an empty room"

.................

 

[FB]

There's only one driver who could have done that, isn't there?

Andrea de Cesaris?

 

[teabagyokel]

FB - He'd have crashed in the car park.

 

[downforce]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I think I'm gonna go with laughing as its more fun.

 

[Albies Dog]

The guy is a driving disaster... at least the GP2 driver put in 8 laps to save the day.

Will Pastor really continue next year, Williams must be pretty desparate to maintain the relationship.

 

[The Artist.....]

Remember that Maldonado won the Spanish GP- on sheer pace.... Ok, so he has inconsistencies, but on his day, he can rise head and shoulders above the rest!

 

[FB]

Often literally as well as metaphorically The Artist.....

 

[Senna's_right_foot]

The guy is a driving disaster... at least the GP2 driver put in 8 laps to save the day.

Will Pastor really continue next year, Williams must be pretty desparate to maintain the relationship $46 million he brings in sponsorship

Fixed that for you.

 

[downforce]

Remember that Maldonado won the Spanish GP- on sheer pace.... Ok, so he has inconsistencies, but on his day, he can rise head and shoulders above the rest!

That would have been a very different race If someone hadn't got a 24 place grid penalty

 

[The Artist.....]

That "might" have been a very different race.....

 

[Bill Boddy]

It "might" well have had a collision at the first corner taking the top two on the grid out.

If Harold had lost to Harald Hadraga and Tostig Godwinson at Stamford Bridge we could be using a language that is very different to our current one.

Neither event happened.

 

[The Pits]

It would have been different.

How it would have been different, who knows, but it would have been different.

It wasnt.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Sir Frank must be tired of seeing his cars require major repairs after Pastor is done with them.

 

[Jen]

He brings lots of money to the team - does anyone think there might be a separate re-build fund?

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Penalty for blocking in Spa, double penalty for Monza. He said he's learnt from his mistakes, I do not think so.

I don't doubt he has speed but the mistakes are endless, I think Maldonado is lucky that the ever consistent Barrichello isn't in the 2nd car because he wouldn't be crashing and he would be bringing home the points. I really do think that Williams would be at least 5th in the WCC if they had two solid drivers, instead they're now 8th and behind Force India (a team that is only really faster than Toro Rosso and the '2010' teams).

I know Williams must run a Venezuelan driver in order to recieve PDVSA money but they must surely be considering dumping Maldonado, getting someone like Glock or Kovalainen in and getting more money from a higher WCC position.