Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLotus F1

Maldonado felt FP1 crash was 'very unlucky'

Pastor Maldonado says he was "very unlucky" to cause so much damage when crashing during FP1 for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Exiting Malmedy, Maldonado ran wide on to the exit kerb and lost the rear of his Lotus, sliding sideways across the track. While Maldonado was able to straighten the car up, he still made contact with the tyre barrier which caused significant damage to the right hand side.

“In the morning I just lost the car in the middle of the corner and when I took the kerb it was very slippery and I completely left the track," Maldonado said. "I nearly saved the car but it’s an area which is very, very narrow - not enough space - and I touched the barrier.”

When asked if he felt a bit unlucky with the way the car dug in to the tyre barrier, Maldonado replied: “It was very unlucky because I nearly saved the car.

"But anyway, it happened. This track is always very difficult when you have a moment or whatever, especially at that point, the second sector is quite narrow."

Having said on Thursday he is keen to put an incident-filled race in Hungary out of his mind, Maldonado insists another crash does not impact on his confidence.

“It can happen. Now we can’t change anything so we just need to look forward. We have had problems in the past and we have always been positive and moving forward. The team is working, we are working, so there is no problem at all.”

Click here for a gallery of the biggest crashes at Spa-Francorchamps

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.