(Lotus F1 Team)
The Lotus F1 Team's Pastor Maldonado secured his first ever world championship driving for the Enstone team at the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin Texas on Sunday following an extremely eventful and exciting race.
The Venezuelan, who started the race from 10th place on the grid and finished the race in ninth place before being demoted to th place after being handed a five second post race penalty however he was then promoted back to ninth after the Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Jean Eric Vernge was himself demoted to tenth place after being handed a time penalty for causing the collision with Romain Grosjean.
Speaking after collecting his first points for the Lotus F1 Team, Maldonado commented by saying:
'It was a great fight from the very beginning; it felt good, the strategy was good and the car pace was surprisingly good! We were fully focused, keeping the pace and managing the tyres.
We did lose out in the slow-speed corners but we were very competitive in the medium and high speed turns throughout the first and last sector. That meant we could recover the time lost in the slow ones so we were in the mix.
Overtaking was challenging because of the speed we have but we still took the fight to others for position which was great. Let’s keep pushing like that; I think we can do a good job in the next two races.'
In contrast his team mate Romain Grosjean endured an extremely difficult race after Toro Rosso's Jean Eric Vergne collided with Fran-Swiss driver damaging Grosjean's E22 for which Vergne was handed a five second post race time penalty.
Speaking following the race Grosjean stated:
'The race was really good, I enjoyed it. On the soft tyres, the car was quick; I could follow the Ferraris, and on prime it was a bit more difficult but still enjoyable.
Fighting with JB was very very tight but definitely good fun. It was less amusing with Jean-Eric though, he broke my front wing and he broke my rear floor which made the car pretty difficult to drive afterwards.
I wasn’t very happy about that as the incident cost me P8. On the plus side, it’s good to be back in the points with Pastor, it’s just a shame not to have been there too.'
The Enstone outfit were extremely competitive at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday and had both cars running in the top ten during the race. Deputy team principal Frederico Gastaldi was extremely encouraged by the improved performance of the E22 with the Argentinian stating;
'It was a great race from both our drivers and everyone in the garage for which we owe everyone at Enstone thanks for their perseverance throughout the season.
Pastor and Romain both drove really well and showed their class on track. For Pastor it was great to finally score, which is something we all want. There are two further races in 2014 and we aim to achieve the very best possible in both of them.'
The Lotus F1 Team's Trackside Operations Director Alan Permane stated:
'It was good to be back racing Ferraris and McLarens today and see both cars running in scoring positions. Tyres were key, with degradation varying at different points in the race but we seemed to manage well with the allocation here. Our pace was good and we matched that of McLaren and Toro Rosso fairly evenly. Overall it was a good effort from everyone. We have the same tyre combination for Brazil next weekend, we can go on and do the same.'
© Ben Johnston 2014
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