Spanish GP: A new penalty point on Maldonado’s license
Pastor Maldonado was doubly penalized by the stewards of the Spanish Grand Prix following a collision with Marcus Ericsson: a stop-and-go penalty during the race and an additional penalty point on his F1 license.
After putting his Lotus E22 into the wall at the start of qualifying on Saturday in Barcelona, Pastor Maldonado had a complicated Grand Prix. Indeed, he received a 5-second stop-and-go penalty following a collision with Marcus Ericsson’s Caterham on the first lap.
But as misfortune never comes alone, the Venezuelan also received a penalty point at the end of the race for the same collision with the Swedish driver.
Maldonado now has 4 points on his F1 license and thus joins Jules Bianchi “at the top.” As a reminder, once a driver reaches 12 points within a 12-month period, they automatically incur a race suspension.
Gérard Lopez, the director of the Lotus F1 team, knows that the team will need to help him channel himself, as he revealed to the official F1 website: “Maybe he’s overdoing it a bit, and we need to talk with him and temper him.”
State of play of F1 drivers’ penalty points /f1/news/17620-gerard-lopez-lotus-used-races-as-test-sessions.html
4 points
Jules Bianchi: 2 points for causing a collision with Maldonado in Malaysia and 2 points for causing a collision with Sutil in Bahrain
Pastor Maldonado: 3 points for causing a collision with Gutiérrez in Bahrain and 1 point for causing a collision with Ericsson during the race in Spain
2 points
Valtteri Bottas: 2 penalty points for impeding a driver during qualifying in Malaysia
Kevin Magnussen: 2 points for causing a collision with Räikkönen in Malaysia
Adrian Sutil: 2 points for forcing Grosjean off track during qualifying in Bahrain
