Pastor Maldonado believes the stewards in Formula 1 appear to be harsher when it comes to punishing the Venezuelan driver for on-track incidents.
Maldonado has earned the reputation of crashing in F1, and of being aggressive on track, but he reckons that he does not merit the blame or the sanctions every time he is involved.
The thirty-year-old, who looks set to lead the newly-reformed Renault works team in 2016 alongside Jolyon Palmer, believes his reputation sometimes means harsher penalties to what other drivers would receive in the same instances.
“When I make a mistake, even by myself without touching anyone, everybody is surprised and this is the news of the day,” said Maldonado.
“All the other drivers crash, all the other drivers have incidents and nothing happens. Look at [Valtteri] Bottas and Kimi [Raikkonen], twice, and it’s a simple racing incident. I have a stupid contact and everybody goes ‘Agghh…'”
“It’s very difficult for the stewards because they are always different. So it’s very difficult to value the same in different races. It’s not that they don’t like me or not. I know all of them and they are just doing their jobs. But sometimes they have different views than the other races.
“I’ve seen so many incidents during the year and maybe they weren’t that hard with their decisions. Sometimes with me they are a bit harder. It’s part of the game. It’s the same in football.”
