Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLotus F1

Lotus: Maldonado sponsors 'paid in advance'

Pastor Maldonado's seat at Lotus has never been under threat and his sponsors "have paid in advance", according to Federico Gastaldi.

With Renault in the process of taking over Lotus, Maldonado's future was thought to be uncertain as the new owners could opt to change the driver line-up. However, Maldonado was confirmed as staying with the team in 2016 immediately following this year's Singapore Grand Prix.

With Lotus having faced financial difficulties throughout the year, Maldonado's PDVSA sponsorship is vital to the team, but deputy team principal Gastaldi told F1i there has never been a chance he would leave.

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“We signed Pastor for three years," Gastaldi said. "[In Singapore] we confirmed him just as a routine we had agreed with his sponsors. We did it last year in Monza. Monza was the previous race before Singapore and we just only announced it a week after that because that’s what’s been agreed on the documents.

"But when I hear people saying ‘Pastor is going here or there’ or something about his sponsors, it has been all normal, all in place, all perfect.

“When I hear about the payments, they have paid in advance. So I don’t know who or why people start inventing those situations. He was signed for three years, the last year is the end of 2016.”

Lotus is now looking for a new team-mate for Maldonado, having admitted it was caught out by Romain Grosjean's decision to move to Haas.

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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.