Pastor Maldonado looks to score his first 2015 points at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with the European leg of the Formula season kicking off during next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Lotus is coming off a pair of consecutive points finishes, courtesy of team-mate Romain Grosjean’s drives to P7 in both China and Bahrain, and will bring several upgrades to its Mercedes-powered E23 at Montmeló.
Meanwhile, Maldonado has experienced a tough start to his 2015 campaign and is yet to trouble the top-ten on race day, although it was through no fault of his own at Melbourne and Sepang.
Still, the Venezuelan only has one Q3 appearance to his name so far when Grosjean can boast a 100% attendance record in the top-ten shootout for pole position.
“It was a complicated start to the season, the first four races were tough,” admits Maldonado. “It wasn’t easy to be hit by other drivers for both Australia and Malaysia!
“I think we learnt a lot from the first two races however as we made a good jump in performance by the Chinese Grand Prix because we had learnt so much about our car.
“The aim is always to get 100% from the package, to know we’ve achieved the best possible. So a win might not be on the cards just yet but we are definitely able to fight for good points.”
Coming back to Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya also bears a special significance to Maldonado, who became a grand prix winner in Spain three years ago while driving for Williams, and always enjoys a lot of cheering from the local crowd.
“It’s very special – mostly because we see a lot of Venezuelan support there, also because it’s the first race back in Europe, and of course, because it’s nice to have won there. Hopefully we’ll see a good result there for the team and some points for me!
“[The 2012 Spanish Grand Prix] was a great day in my career, a strong race and victory over Fernando Alonso in his home event. We really deserved it because we did it on merit and under big pressure from the Ferrari all race.”
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