Pastor Maldonado Thrilled About Upcoming Week
GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado announced a couple of weeks ago that he will be joining Williams for the 2011 season as a replacement for Nico Hulkenberg. This statement was confirmed by team Williams as the team stated that they will have to let Nico go in order to make some space for Maldonado. The team further added that since Rubens Barrichello has been fairly better than Hulkenberg, he will hold on to his seat and therefore drive alongside the GP2 champion.
It would be interesting to see what Williams has in store next year since Pastor Maldonado will be bringing in a major sponsor by PDVSA, his country Venezuela’s government and state owned Petroleum Company according to some reports.
Pastor stated that he has some important meeting to attend to in order to secure his future in the coming week. Many believe that this is an indication to his contract signing with Williams that was expected to take place this coming week.
The GP2 champion tested with both Williams and HRT but denied the rumours that he is already done with a deal with Williams for the 2011 season. He is expected to make his debut in the sport next season as Williams has already confirmed that he will be Rubens’ teammate while Nico’s manager Willi Weber stated that Williams is probably done with the deal with Pastor.
Pastor Maldonado is just 25 years old and since Nico Hulkenberg took the only pole position for Williams this year, it was quite clear that he was not looking so bad and as a result, many believe that Williams signed Pastor only for the financial benefits he was bringing with him. It is quite understandable as the team has been struggling since the departure of Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher. The only way to get back to the top is by getting some good financial aid and it seems that only Maldonado can provide it at the moment.
Since the Venezuelan driver is backed by his country’s government and PDVSA and it seems that they support their young driver in every way.
“If you win the GP2 championship you definitely hope that Formula One is the next logical step.”
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