McLaren driver ran into back of Pastor Maldonado at Turn One
Sunday 12 April 2015 11:39, UK
Jenson Button has been hit with a five-second time penalty and had two points added to his super licence after crashing into Pastor Maldonado.
The McLaren and Lotus drivers were fighting over 13th place when the 2009 world champion dived to the attempted to fake to the outside of Turn One before cutting back to the inside.
However, Button mistimed the move and ran into the back of Maldonado, sending the Venezuelan spinning across the run-off area. The contact subsequently caused a rear brake failure on the Lotus, leading to retirement from the race.
The penalty relegates Button to 14th in the results, promoting Carlos Sainz to 13th.
“I thought there was room on the inside and I can’t really say anything else,” Jenson Button told Sky Sports F1 after the race.
“An incident you never want to happen, just a misjudgement I guess.”
Maldonado says he was enjoying the fight up until that point as he battled both McLaren cars.
“I was not expecting to have the contact. At the time we were having a good fight with Jenson and Fernando [Alonso], but then I think he lost completely the braking point,” the Venezuelan said.
“We were completely offline and he was even with the DRS open so I think he did a mistake.”
It wasn’t the only dramatic moment of Maldonado’s race. The Lotus driver spun early on and then misjudged his pit entry, requiring the marshals to push him back onto the track.
“On the pit entry I lost completely the race there,” he added. “I had a big lockup, especially on the inside wheel on the entry so we need to see what happened there. It was very easy to lock, so I was not expecting to have this.
“But on the other hand it was the first time that we competed close to the other teams and we can see that the potential is there. The car is competitive, very consistent in the race, for sure we need to find more in qualifying, but in the race the pace is actually there.”
