Maldonado “often underestimated” according to Xevi Pujolar
The only achievement of Pastor Maldonado in F1 is his victory at the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012, but one of his former engineers at Williams believes the Venezuelan is an "underrated" driver.
Xevi Pujolar was the chief race engineer at the Williams team in recent years, which allowed him to work closely with Pastor Maldonado within the Grove team. The Spaniard, recruited by Toro Rosso from /f1/actualite/16941-la-lotus-e22-a-bien-roule-a-jerez-.html, believes that his former protégé is a driver often underestimated.
Maldonado has often been the subject of numerous criticisms as a “pay driver” due to the support from the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA and his driving errors, but Pujolar believes that the native of Maracay has proven his worth, as he told MotorsportMagazin.com: « I’ve always said that Pastor and [Juan Pablo] Montoya are the ones who impressed me the most. Perhaps because they are real fighters. But Pastor has shown he is fast, and I think he is often underestimated. »
Pujolar also believes that Maldonado has a very good understanding of F1 cars, which is a big help for the technical team: « I worked with very good drivers like Mark Webber or Ralf Schumacher… but for me, it wasn’t the same with them. He [Maldonado] was well understood when he came back from the circuits and started talking about the car. I immediately saw his reaction and knew what was happening with the car. After analyzing the data, it was obvious… yes, that was it. »
This season, Pastor Maldonado (#13) will team up with Romain Grosjean (#8) within the Lotus F1 team. He also debuted the Lotus E22 during the British team’s running at Jerez on February 7th and 8th.
