Time to give Maldonado some respect?
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Yet another surprise from Maldonado.
This time a front row qualifying on a difficult street track.So is it time to acknowledge him as a legitimate driver getting some amazing drives on a mid-field car ?!
Or is he still a pay-driver that would not get a f1 sit on merit?
I must say, yes his performance in quali was impressive. But, seeing as qualifying and the race are two completely different things, I’m going to wait until he does/doesn’t stick it in the wall/someone else tomorrow before I start calling him the next Senna.
But yeah, he definitely deserves respect as a driver because he can be bloody quick. Unfortunately he can also be bloody erratic.
I’m not sure about the others but for me, Maldonado’s raw speed/talent has never been denied, which he has obviously demonstrated on multiple occasions this season (Barcelona and Valencia qualifying) but clearly it’s been overshadowed by his victimisation of drivers on track in his incidents, whether they’ve been deliberate (Monaco-Perez) or unintentional.
This is me sounding rather light-hearted regarding Maldonado because I’m normally used to cracking jokes after qualifying about potential incidents involving him & who’s his next victim, but I hope he has a strong race tomorrow & collect some solid points (& avoid ramming into someone else).
According to Keith’s article called https://www.racefans.net/2012/08/21/questions-answered-3/
How many points have drivers lost in 2012, Maldonado has lost more points than he’s won, he has 29 points (25 in Spain, 4 in China) but he easily could’ve been at 60-63 points if it wasn’t for both poor reliability, misfortunes and more significantly, his mistakes.
That being said, the championship doesn’t tell the whole story. Pastor is definitely much more talented than his teammate, and in my opinion he’s very fast, out-qualifying Vettel, Webber and Button in undoubtedly inferior equipment.
He reminds me a lot of Montoya, actually.
I’m not sure about the others but for me, Maldonado’s raw speed/talent has never been denied, which he has obviously demonstrated on multiple occasions this season (Barcelona and Valencia qualifying) but clearly it’s been overshadowed by his victimisation of drivers on track in his incidents, whether they’ve been deliberate (Monaco-Perez) or unintentional.
I agree with most of this, but at the same time, I think far too many people have been far to quick to assume that Maldonado has been in the wrong.
And I have never seen any conclusive proof that Maldonado intentionally hit Perez. If he hadn’t hit Hamilton on purpose on Spa, nobody would have assumed he did the same to Perez in Monaco. And every time I ask for proof of it, I seem to be asking an empty room.
@prisioner-monkeys well, whatever the case, it was, at least, suspicious. If it wasn’t on purpose, then it was just shocking driving, as Perez had left much more than enough room and Maldonado really didn’t need to turn in so quickly… it wasn’t a race.
That’s what’s tricky about Maldonado. If he was just a little bit more cold headed, he’d be up there almost always.
The corner where it happened is already pretty blind to begin with. I’d say that Maldonado simply couldn’t see the turn-in point because Perez was travelling slowly, further obscuring the corner, and he turned in too early. To my mind, that explanation makes far more sense that Maldonado deliberately crashing into Perez for no reason at all. Because to this day, I’m convinced that when Maldonado crashed into Hamilton at Spa, it wasn’t a random attack and that he felt Hamilton had robbed him of a better qualifying time and grid position. If that is true, then attacking Perez for no reason makes even less sense because he had a reason, however unjust, when he did it the first time.
@yazriel He is fast, I rate him way higher than Senna, and he has potential, but his “amazing drives on a mid-field car” almost always come to nought. I don’t really dislike him, but one result still accounts for five sixths of his career points tally for goodness sake. He needs to be consistently scoring to get respect.
He is fast, I rate him way higher than Senna
That is a bold statement David….. Maldonado is Fast and talented but I agree with what @Younger Hamii said in his post…
@prisoner-monkeys, I think the reason that Maldonado crashed into Hamilton and Perez, in Spa and Monaco respectively, is that he got too hot under the helmet (didn’t Perez hold him up the lap before?). You make it sound like he deliberated “Hamilton cost me a good lap, so now I will pay him back by driving into him”. In both occasions, it seems more likely to me that he was posturing with his car, rather than deliberately ramming anyone, but then I don’t really know the guy.
As for asking an empty room for proof he hit Perez deliberately, that’s because FOM does not release all the camera footage of the incidents. The stewards did have access to all the data, and they handed him a 10-place grid penalty. Also, where is your proof that no-one has any proof? I suspect that in the discussions on this incident at the time, plenty of arguments were put forward to support the claim that Maldonado moved towards Perez deliberately.
Maldonado was given a ten-place penalty for causing an avoidable accident – which is not the same as deliberately causing an accident.
@PrisonerMonkeys
I’d say that Maldonado simply couldn’t see the turn-in point because Perez was travelling slowly, further obscuring the corner, and he turned in too early.
Is that really an excuse for what he did?
If there is a car, where he thinks that he should turn in, then he has to wait until he can turn in without hitting someone. Just because he can’t see exactly where he is supposed to go doesn’t mean he can just ram everyone out of the way.
Whether it was intentional or not is hard to prove, but at some point the stewards has to judge what happened. Not wait for Maldonardo to admit that he did it on purpose. Because he wont. They judged that Schumacher had intentionally parked his car in Monaco 2006 and penalized him thereafter. Same could be done with Maldonardo.They judged that Schumacher had intentionally parked his car in Monaco 2006 and penalized him thereafter. Same could be done with Maldonardo.
But they didn’t.
Although Schumacher and Maldonado started the 2006 and 2012 races from last place, they got there through entirely different means. In 2006, Schumacher had his times deleted when the stewards decided that he had deliberately stopped on the circuit. But in 2012, Maldonado was given a grid penalty for causing an avoidable collision which put him 19th, and then a five-place penalty for a gearbox change. If the stewards felt that he had deliberately hit Perez, they probably would have deleted his times.
I don’t know why people have only just noticed because Maldonado has always been fast. He’s obviously talented, but he’s just never been able to see through the red mist. He has also not apologised for his previous and probably deliberate accidents.
Maybe he has moved on, we’ll see at the end of the year.
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