F1 News
Date: 13/May/2012
A shock debut F1 victory by Pastor Maldonado in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix means the 2012 championship has produced five different winners from the opening five rounds.
Maldonado’s win was also the first ever in F1 by a Venezuelan driver, and the first for the Williams team since 2004. The 27 year old had scored just a single point during his rookie 2011 season with Williams and Sunday’s victory also marked his first ever rostrum visit.
But he won in style, using his pole (after a post-qualifying penalty for Lewis Hamilton) as a springboard for a race long battle with Ferrari’s double World Champion Fernando Alonso - a fight Maldonado ultimately won by just 3.1s.
Maldonado said: “It’s an unbelievable feeling winning my first race! The car felt really consistent, was fantastic to drive and our pace was strong throughout. Alonso was chasing me hard but we looked after our tyres well and I managed to open the gap towards the end.
“The team has worked so hard all year and this win is for them. To be the first Venezuelan to win a Formula One race is a big honour and hopefully I will win more races in the future.
“It was so close [at the end]. We were looking to manage the tyre degradation so I wasn't pushing that hard, just to keep the tyres alive for the end of the race and Fernando got too close.
“There were some moments that he was so close, especially at the end of the straight. But I was managing the gap and controlling everything.”
The Williams victory celebrations later came to a dramatic end when a serious fire broke out in the team garage. Seven people were hospitalised, but fortunately there were no life threatening injuries.
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