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.

 

[tooncheese]

I wonder if instead of Hamilton, Maldonado would have crashed into, say Webber, that would have caused this level of controversy?

Well in Spain with a different media favourite they are too busy saying "AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".

So probably not.

 

[Speshal]

If I may swing this vaguely back on topic by Playing Devil's advocate?

Does anyone think that possibly Pastor is a little bit surprised by the pace of that car?

 

[GeoffP]

I think he's in need of a Manager, or possibly anybody with the guts to stand up to his dad's bank balance and give him some honest functional guidance.

His father's money may have helped him get this far, but I now believe it may well be hindering him moving forwards

 

[Galahad]

He's had four months to get used to it.

 

[gethinceri]

He's a good driver, but mental.

 

[Speshal]

His father's money may have helped him get this far.

Without a doubt, however, he did win the GP2 series on merit (yes the car was good etc etc) but the FIA don't hand out super-licenses willy nilly for any old pay driver these days (since Yuji Ide)

As gethinceri said, he's not a bad driver as was shown by his drive to the podium earlier this season, he just needs guidance in racecraft* and possibly anger management too.


* There was a good piece on the training the youngsters get from Formula Ford on the Beeb's pre race show for Valencia, media skills, racecraft, engineering - probably still on iplayer

 

[GeoffP]

Speshal I agree with his abilities, which is why I said "helped", but he really needs to grow up now

 

[KekeTheKing]

I started scanning my archive for "Maldo Moments", and quite frankly, even I was shocked at just how prevalent they are.

Malaysia 2011 - Drives into the back of Perez

Monaco 2011 - Closes the door on Hamilton and drives over the curb into the wall

Great Britain 2011 - Swerves across at Schumacher into Copse

Belgium 2011 - Re-acquaints himself with Hamilton

Abu Dhabi 2011 - Receives a drive through for ignoring blue flags and comes out and does this to Webber

Australia 2012 - Has a late dive on Grosjean and breaks his suspension

China 2012 - Clumsily slams into the rear of di Resta

Monaco 2012 - Shows his uncontrollable temper once again, in FP3 mind you!

Europe 2012 - Takes out the WDC leader in a typically mindless maneuver

I guess when you race in GP2 for 4 years you have a tendency to carry over those "bully-boy", junior formula "tactics".....

 

[teabagyokel]

I guess when you race in GP2 for 4 years you have a tendency to carry over those "bully-boy", junior formula "tactics"...

I think that's unfair to all the other drivers who have come through GP2.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Has anybody else ever raced in GP2 for 4 years? That's where my criticism lies, not the series itself.

EDIT - And that's beside the point anyway...

 

[teabagyokel]

KekeTheKing - Probably.

Anyway, thanks for reminding me about Abu Dhabi. Never before had I seen such a display of absolute amateurism.

 

[Abnash24]

As a driver he makes no sense to me and this is highlighted during the Spanish and Monaco GP's. One minute he is calm, fast and mature, next week he's using his car as an offensive weapon because he's gone mental.
Honestly i really dont like how he is in F1, 1 because he's mainly in there because of money and 2 there are many other drivers desperate to get a shot in F1 and he is just taking up a spot.
He does a lot of despicable and disgusting things but out of the blue he will drive a brilliant race but after hitting Hamilton i've had it. Get him out!

 

[RickD]

Abnash24 - So, just because he hit your favourite driver, you want him out of F1? What about Hamilton or Massa hitting each other last year, or even Vettel for the amatuerish move in Spa the year before and taking Button out or even Hamilton and Button coming together in Canada last year. should they all be out of F1 as well? By your logic, all of these drivers should go.

He obviously has some talent or he would not have won a GP. You can tame aggression, but it is much harder to get someone slow to go faster.

 

[The Pits]

Right.

This subject has gone on for long enough now. Any further attempts to prolong this line of conversation will be deleted.

Thank you.

 

[Fenderman]

Nicely timed The Pits

 

[Mephistopheles]

Pastor Maldonado says he has mastered the the Pirelli tyres, it's a pity he hasn't mastered the art of not crashing into people..

Joke, joke that was just a joke don't shoot me for it ...

 

[Il_leone]

If it was not for his wealthy backers does anyone think he would be still in F1 then?

The message was not clear enough

A Dq would have made it clear it was not acceptable plus a suspended sentence banned for 3 races like they did impose on people like Hakkinen and Schumacher for over aggressive driving

Whilst its early days I do remember Hakkinen being a bit accident prone in his early days of Mclaren before becoming one of the fastest men in F1.... the same was said about Mansell

but can anyone truly see Maldonado as a future world champion ??

 

[Mephistopheles]

I don't know but as far as I do know the only driver to ever have his super licence taken away was Yuji Ide and even he wasn't banned from F1 but to be honest I don't think Pastor is anywhere near as bad as that.

Also Whether he will be world champion or not is irrelevant if drivers were picked to drive by that criteria then you would have to get rid of more than half the grid, also pay drivers are a very important part of a teams financial scope.

On a separate issue I have read the Stewards report (Or a report on the stewards report.) and his penalty was not given for hitting Lewis it was given for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner which is why it differs from Vergne's but they did consider giving him a grid penalty.

A ban is not within the scope of the offence..

Also Shumi was not banned for three races for dangerous driving he was given that for ignoring a black flag...

 

[Viscount]

I think he would still be in F1 without his backing. He's shown impressive speed at various points throughout his career during and before F1 so he has the talent to be there albeit so far seems to lack consistency. Without the backing he'd be under a lot more pressure for his seat which might lead to a slightly different attitude on track and some consistency.

I don't think he'll be a world champion though just like the majority of current drivers on the grid.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I also think that Pastor has shown and is showing a lot of potential WDC maybe but only time will tell I think he has talent and he just needs to tame that talent just a little bit the very best racers start off by crashing a lot as they are learning where the limits are this is more true in motorcycle racing than in cars but the philosophy holds true..