Pastor Maldonado believes he could have won Abu Dhabi GP – Formula 1 news
Williams’ driver Pastor Maldonado has said that he could have scored win in the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix if he hadn’t faced the issue of KERS failure.
Maldonado said that his car was competent enough to challenge for victory at Yas Marina Circuit but the KERS malfunction after the first safety car hindered his performance in the race. Therefore, he had to take a defensive approach afterwards, with which
he managed to secure fifth place finish after taking a start from third grid slot.
“The pace was there,” Maldonado told ESPN exclusively. “We dropped the KERS after that we were losing four tenths a lap which compromised our pace. After that I was trying to open a gap with the guys behind but it was impossible to do and it went from being
an attacking race to being a defensive race.”
However, he insisted that he had the potential to win the race as his pace was very good in the start when he was reducing the gap to Lewis Hamilton of McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus.
“For sure [victory was possible]; the pace was so good, especially at the beginning. We opened quite a good gap over Fernando and Webber, and I was trying to close the gap to Lewis and Kimi, but the pace was fantastic today,” he added.
In addition, he said that he defended himself quite well at turn 11 when Mark Webber of Red Bull Racing went too close to his car. Nevertheless, he said that he feels really disappointed for Webber who was unfortunately caught-up in the upshot of the crash
between Sergio Perez of Sauber and Romain Grosjean of Lotus.
Presently, the Venezuelan driver is standing at 14th place in the drivers’ championship with 43 points and is just 3 points behind his main rival, Paul di Resta of Force India.
Even though, he has faced immense criticism over his aggressive driving style due to which many accidents have happened in the season so far. Nonetheless, he is trying to improve and is aiming to attain competitive results in the remaining two grands prix
of the ongoing season.
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