Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLotus F1

Maldonado calm over Button collision

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Pastor Maldonado refused to criticise Jenson Button for the collision which ruined his race in the Chinese Grand Prix.

After an eventful race in which Maldonado went straight on at the pit lane entry - having to be pushed back on track - and then spun at Turn 6, the Venezuelan engaged in a good battle with Button as he tried to recover through the field. However, Button ran in to the rear of the Lotus after using DRS to attempt an overtake at Turn 1, punting Maldonado in to a spin and eventually retirement.

While Button received a five-second time penalty and two penalty points for the incident, Maldonado was understanding of the collision.

“I made a great start and we were running strongly early on however later I had a braking issue which made it harder to battle," Maldonado said. "We also have to understand why the brakes locked-up so easily coming into the pits. We lost a lot of time here and it compromised the rest of my race.

"It was a fantastic battle with Jenson and we were passing each other very cleanly; a good, fun, exciting battle. Unfortunately, it looks like he got his braking point wrong and went into the back of me. This can easily happen when you’re fighting for position, braking off-line and using DRS, so it’s just one of those things."

Lotus had more luck with Romain Grosjean, who finished in seventh place to give the team its first points of the year.

“It’s the best we could do today and it’s satisfying to have achieved the team’s first points of the season," Grosjean said. "I’m proud of everyone at Enstone and at the track.

"It wasn’t an easy circuit for us, with a lot of front limited corners that we don’t particularly like, but we had a strong start, and most of the stints were good too. We’ve made a good job improving the car race after race and it’s great to finally score points. The next race could be promising too!"

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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.