Formula 1

Pastor Maldonado: “We’ve Shown we can be Competitive”

2 Mins read

The Lotus F1 Team endured a tough Canadian Grand Prix that saw both Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean retire. Maldonado in particular was having a strong race, while Grosjean could have grabbed a point or two had he not retired on lap fifty-eight.

Maldonado was having a relatively strong race having started seventeenth, but was forced to retire with a mechanical issue with his power unit, a reoccurrence of the energy loss he experienced in qualifying. The Venezuelan was hopeful of his first points of the season but finds himself still rooted to the bottom of the Drivers’ Championship.

“We had a similar problem to yesterday where we lost a lot of power,” said Maldonado. “It’s a shame as the race was going very well, and we had an excellent pace – to be honest I was quite surprised by the car.

“The strategy was good, as we were looking for one stop whereas all the other cars were planning two stops, so we were looking very strong today and even without stopping we were on a similar pace with the other teams. We just need to look into exactly what happened and work hard to fix the problems we are having. We’ve shown we can be competitive.”

Team-mate Grosjean experienced a tough race but feels there are some positives to take away from Montreal, a circuit Lotus knew would not suit them even before they arrived in Canada.

“Today was not great in terms of pace for me, however there are some positives looking forwards,” admitted Grosjean. “We can see that a Renault Sport F1 team can win a race so we have a target there, especially when the win came at a circuit that is not thought to be one of the stronger ones for them.

“The rear wing of my car broke, so it was safer to retire than risk a potentially dangerous situation. We have a lot of work to do, so it’s time to go home and try to understand our problems and come back stronger in the next races.”

Deputy Team Principal Federico Gastaldi was disappointed with the end result in Montreal with the double retirement, especially as he believed Maldonado was on for some points.

“For us, it was certainly not our finest moment,” said Gastaldi. “Pastor was driving very strongly with a good strategy, which should have seen him finish strongly in the points. He had an issue related to his power unit from the start of the race and eventually he had to retire because of this. This is frustrating for all involved and we will do everything we can to eradicate issues like this in the future.

“Romain had a tough race where he pushed all the way, but there was a problem with his rear wing. Again, not ideal and something we need to understand and rectify. We have a busy few weeks before Austria.

“Today saw a great Formula 1 race and we must say congratulations to Daniel Riccardo for his first win.”

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Long time motorsport fanatic, covering Formula 1 and the occassional other series. Feel free to give him a follow on Twitter at @Paul11MSport.
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