F1: Maldonado remains upbeat despite continued troubles in Canada
Pastor Maldonado says he remains positive about the form of Lotus, despite yet another disappointment in Canada.
After failing to start in Monaco two races ago, he retired early in Montreal after a power unit sensor problem.
“The main positive was that we were fighting for points, easily,” said the Venezuelan. “The strategy was quite good, starting on prime tires and planning only one stop. It was difficult in terms of grip at the beginning and we lost some places, which we expected because the other guys were on super soft tires. But the pace came and I was competitive. We started 17th and were up to eighth place. Then we had a power unit problem and had to retire. I know we’ve had retirements before, but this was particularly difficult as we have really made progress and we could have finished well despite starting the race from so far back.”
Maldonado admits that there has been some frustration.
“I am very motivated. I think we have some good weekends ahead of us and there are still so many races to go. The European part of the season is very important for us, so let’s push hard, do our best and for sure we will be in the points soon.
“We all know what we have to do and we are all pushing hard. Yes, we can all get frustrated, but ultimately we all want to achieve success so we remain positive. We can see how much improvement there has been with pace from the car and, once we have all the reliability issues sorted, we’ll be regularly fighting for points. Once we’re there, the next target is to fight for more points and then podiums. We’ve seen that the Mercedes are not perfect and can be beaten. Even they had reliability issues in Canada.”
Maldonado believes that the team can still earn some good results in 2014.
“I still keep pushing and it’s still possible to achieve good things this year. We have had a third of the season which has been a challenge – a big challenge – but we still have two thirds of the year to go with many circuits which should suit our car. You arrive at every track with the target of having the best weekend possible and finding as much performance from the car and yourself. This does not change if you’ve had a difficult last weekend in the car.”
