Sky Sports F1 Exclusive: Pastor Maldonado on Lotus, Williams and his reputation

Which driver most divides opinion the most in F1? Lewis? Sebastian? Nico must be on the list now as well. To these names add that of Pastor Maldonado, although in his case opinion doesn’t split like, say, a fork in a road. If it did, then one route would be permanently clogged with traffic.

Has F1 had a more controversial presence these past few years? When Lotus announced last December that the Venezuelan was heading their way, fans wailed like banshees; never mind the gimmickry of double points or the lost shrill thrill of the V8, what’s he still doing here? Adding to the sense of injustice was that the Enstone team had picked him over Nico Hulkenberg – F1’s most maligned driver preferred to its most under-rated. The reason for the decision had little to do with sport, of course, but such considerations meant little.

So Pastor was back. And, let’s face it, he’s probably here to stay for a while, just so long as Venezuela keeps producing millions of barrels of oil, its people keep electing governments with a Bolivarian view of how socialism can affect change and that romance continues to manifest itself as largesse – oodles of petro-dollars, in other words, doled out amongst its sporting stars (reputedly upwards of $40million in Maldonado's case).

At times, it seems as though the credit granted him by PDVSA is all Maldonado has. The debit column overflows by comparison: a steady stream of crashes, bashes and pratfalls that have sometimes veered towards comedy. It could be argued that advances in safety have allowed a more cartoonish element to creep in – the coyote getting squashed flat by the falling safe but waddling off to fight another day - although it’s unlikely that, say, Esteban Gutierrez saw the funny side after his close encounters in Bahrain and at Silverstone.

Besides the erraticism and controversy, there’s a quirkiness about Maldonado and it's apparent the moment he bounds into Lotus’s motorhome for our interview. Slamming to a halt with an air of frantic bewilderment, Pastor does a fairly good impression of Lee Evans for a few seconds before Sky Sports Online registers its presence. Then he bursts out laughing.

Not that he and Lotus have had much to smile about so far. “Really bad,” is how Maldonado sums up their season to date, which started with the late delivery of their E22 chassis and quickly became mired in Renault power unit problems. “It’s difficult to make a point this season, just because I haven’t even been able to race at most of the races.”

According to Maldonado, “most of the problems have been around the power unit, down to Renault. For sure, we don’t have the best car or the perfect car on the grid but in my personal opinion we have a good car, a competitive car. Every time we are not having any problems we are very close to fighting the good teams – maybe not with Mercedes, which is miles away from the real pace. But to be honest a very tough season, from the reliability point of view especially.

“It’s not only the reliability, it’s the power. We don’t have the power; it’s not that we can say, ‘Okay this race the car stopped for the engine but the next one we’re going to win. The next one we will not struggle a lot because maybe it’s a fast track’ or whatever, you know? So it’s been very, very difficult because we’re been fighting against the reliability and still fighting against the power of the car.