Pastor Maldonado was never a fan favourite. That is something of a surprise actually. A fighter; wild-eyed, fearless, sometimes messy, but fast… all traits much-admired in Formula 1 legends as widely celebrated as Gilles Villeneuve, Ayrton Senna, and most recently in Fernando Alonso – the driver amongst his contemporaries the Venezuelan perhaps most resembles on track. He is a winner too.
May 13, the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix, the fifth round in what had already been an eventful and unforgettable season. During the opening four races four different drivers had shared the winning spoils thanks to the unpredictability of Pirelli’s new rubber.
Ahead of the race weekend the Italian firm altered its selection of compounds available, offering the teams both the hard and soft compounds, instead of the initially planned medium and soft tyres.
Maldonado had actually started the year brightly, pushing Alonso hard for fifth in Australia before a late crash, and losing out on points in Malaysia owing to an engine fault. But no one could have foreseen his pace in qualifying at Barcelona, topping Q2 before taking a provisional second on the grid in the final shootout, behind Lewis Hamilton.
However, there was a sting in the tail for the McLaren racer, who was disqualified and sent to the back of the grid after failing to return to parc ferme under his own steam after running out of fuel shortly after posting his blistering pole lap.
This handed a surprise pole to Maldonado, his first in F1, and the Williams team’s first in two years. The Venezuelan would start Sunday’s race flanked by local hero Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari… no pressure then!
Come race day, Alonso took an early lead into Turn 1, dropping Maldonado to second, ahead of Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen in third.
The Williams racer stayed glued to race leader Alonso throughout the opening stint, but was unable to clear the Spaniard at the first round of stops, rejoining second.
At this stage you would have been forgiven for assuming that the race was Alonso’s to lose, with the Ferrari star looking nailed on to cruise to his second victory on home soil.
But just like qualifying on the previous day, a late change of events kept everyone guessing.
Williams elected to call Maldonado into the pits for his second scheduled stop on lap 25, two laps before race leader Alonso, in a risky bid to perform the ‘undercut’ on the racer leader.
While Maldonado’s stop would turn out to be quicker than Alonso’s, traffic also played its part, with Alonso seen entering Turn 1 frantically waving to one of the Marussias in a far from neighbourly manner.
As the Spaniard exited his pit box for his crucial stop, Maldonado crossed the line to post the fastest lap of the race, leapfrog the Ferrari, and rise up into second position, with a long-running Raikkonen still out front.
But the Finn’s tactic was fruitless, and Raikkonen was soon caught by Maldonado and Alonso, with the Williams racer scything past the Lotus to take the lead of the race into Turn 1 on lap 47.
While Alonso followed the Williams through a lap later, the Ferrari star struggled to reel in the charging Venezuelan.
As the laps began to slip away, the gap remained roughly three seconds between the leading duo. Despite having a double-world champion hot on his heels, Maldonado maintained his composure throughout the final laps to take a stunning maiden F1 win – undoubtedly the surprise victory of the season, if not the decade.
It was not only the first F1 win for a Venezuelan driver, but also Williams’ first victory since way back in 2004 when Juan Pablo Montoya stared in Sao Paulo.
Even a post-race fire in the Williams garage failed to dampen the spirit within the team, as the once dominant outfit finally returned to the top step of the rostrum with a totally new face behind the wheel.
It was a breath of fresh air for F1, after the previous season was dominated by usual suspects such as Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Alonso.
Although Maldonado failed to ever again match the dizzy heights of that heady day in Barcelona, the Venezuelan will always be an F1 winner, a feat unmatched by a number of his more lauded peers, namely Romain Grosjean, Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg.
While some folk will remember Maldonado as the but of a bad joke, the erratic driver who kept the marshals hard at work for five years, I will fondly remember him as he was on that day of days, a conquerer of some of the very best grand prix racing has to offer, a real winner.
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