An as yet unidentified mechanical issue brought Pastor Maldonado‘s Valencia qualifying session to a premature end as his Williams stopped out on track in Q2.
The Venezuelan will start from fifteenth place, just two behind team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who was disappointed not to make it into the top ten.
“We should have made it into Q3 today,” said the Brazilian. “My plan for the race is to do the best I can and enjoy myself. We are only just outside the points and there are opportunities to overtake around this track so we will see what we can do.”
Maldonado believes that he would have made it into Q3 without the problem on his car: “We obviously had a problem with the car but we don't know what it is; the engineers are looking into it,” he explained. “It's quite strange because we haven't had any other issues over the weekend. The car feels strong at the moment so I think we could have made it into Q3 today if it weren't for that.”
