By Alan Baldwin
BARCELONA, May 14 (Reuters) – Pastor Maldonado’s first
Formula One victory in Spain showed that the Venezuelan has what
it takes to be a champion, according to Frank Williams.
The 70-year-old team founder who has seen a string of
champions drive his winning cars – including the likes of Nelson
Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna – said the
27-year-old’s win was no fluke.
“Undoubtedly,” Williams said when asked whether Maldonado
had the material to one day be a champion as well as a winner.
“I tell you why – because he’s very quick and he makes no
mistakes.”
That has not been entirely true in this most unpredictable
of seasons, with five different drivers from five separate teams
winning the five races to date, even if the speed has
undoubtedly been there.
Maldonado, a very fast but occasionally wild champion in the
GP2 feeder series, has at times pushed too hard and crashed when
points have been there for the taking but he has also impressed
with his pace.
Underrated and dismissed by some as just another ‘pay
driver’, signed up because he brings much-needed sponsorship
from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, Maldonado showed he is
much more than that.
As he said after the race, when asked about the title,
“anything is possible”.
Before Sunday he would have been laughed at. The
pre-qualifying odds of 300-1 on him winning in Spain, reduced
from an even more generous 500-1, emphasised that this was a
prospect too unbelievable to contemplate.
British bookmakers William Hill said they had received two
10 pound ($16.10) bets at 500-1 and hundreds of smaller wagers.
GREAT POTENTIAL
Williams, however, said his driver’s potential “could be
very considerable indeed.”
“We’ve got a real racing driver as well. I am just
astonished by the way he just controlled himself, didn’t make a
mistake at all,” he declared.
Sunday’s victory ended nearly eight years of waiting for the
once-dominant former champions, whose last win came with another
South American, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, in Brazil in 2004.
Last season was Williams’s worst in Formula One since the
1970s, with just five points all year, and it was four years
since the team that won nine constructors’ crowns and seven
drivers’ titles last appeared on the podium.
They have, however, made a raft of changes and hauled
themselves back into mid-table respectability.
Renault, who also power world champions Red Bull and
high-flying Lotus, have come in as the engine supplier instead
of Cosworth and there have been key changes in the technical
department.
“Last year we just weren’t up to speed technically,” said
Williams. “We had reasonable finance, enough money but things
didn’t come together properly and we made mistakes.
“With a bit of restructuring… several key people were
recruited and they have made a significant difference.”
The big question now is whether they can keep up the
momentum. While Maldonado was a deserving winner, his
achievement also makes winning a realistic aspiration for others
who have not yet done so this season.
That list includes McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, Lotus’s Kimi
Raikkonen, Red Bull’s Mark Webber, Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher,
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.
It also includes Sauber’s Mexican Sergio Perez – second in
Malaysia in a race he could have won – and like Maldonado
representative of a rising generation of initially underrated
Latin American talent.
“I truly haven’t got a clue,” said Williams of his team’s
chances of winning more this year. “Everyone who didn’t win is
seething out there. We’re not doing that today but tomorrow
morning reality strikes.”
Williams board member Toto Wolff sounded a note of caution.
“I can get used to this kind of stuff, I like it,” he told
autosport.com. “But I think we cannot expect results like this
to happen on every occasion, or that we will be there now as a
top contender.
“We have seen Sauber run very competitively in Malaysia, and
we have seen (Nico) Rosberg having a tremendous race (winning in
China), while here it was us. So it is a tricky situation which
the engineers need to understand.”
($1 = 0.6212 British pounds)
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
