Pastor Maldonado Must Prove He Can Lead Lotus Ahead of Romain Grosjean Departure
Stuck in 18th place as his rookie team-mate topped Q1 at the 2013 United States Grand Prix, Pastor Maldonado had seen more than enough.
In the knowledge that he would be leaving the team at the end of the season, the Venezuelan spent much of the race week mocking his employers, telling BBC Sport's Andrew Benson how he was "happy" to walk away and claiming he "delivered more to the team" than they ever did to him during their three-year partnership.
But away from the microphones and in his natural habitat, the cockpit of a Formula One car, it was Maldonado who again failed to deliver.
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While Valtteri Bottas produced the most impressive performance of his debut campaign to ultimately qualify ninth at the Circuit of the Americas, Maldonado fell at the first hurdle after setting a lap time 1.53 seconds slower than the kid on the other side of the garage.
And on a weekend Williams' FW35 car, which had scored just one point in 17 grands prix, was reasonably competitive, this was the final straw.
When he was let loose in the media pen to explain where it all went wrong, Maldonado could have blamed traffic for his inability to come close to Bottas' time. He could, like many of his peers throughout 2013, have criticised Pirelli's tyres to disguise his own failings.
He could have told a white lie—implying an unidentified technical problem had contributed to his lack of pace—or simply admitted he was unable to string a lap together when it really mattered.
But by that stage, it was so much easier—and far more fun—to drag Williams through the mud.
"I think I never got 100 per cent from the tyres. I think, in my car, somebody is playing with the pressures and temperatures..." Maldonado told Sky Sports, accusing his colleagues of sabotaging his machinery. "But yeah, one more race to go, so great!"
"I think you need to ask the team, the guys working on the car," he continued, his eyes widening and a smirk forming across his face as his Williams press officer listened anxiously. "It's quite clear."
Maldonado's comments—quickly dismissed by the team, of course—not only damaged his relationship with Williams beyond repair, but revealed why his time as their No. 1 driver was always destined to end in tears.
Despite being the first Williams driver in almost eight years to win a race at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix, Maldonado did not possess the consistency, the personality or the temperament to lead one of the most iconic institutions in F1 over an extended period of time.
His move to Lotus for 2014, therefore—announced less than two weeks after his Austin antics—was as much a return to his comfort zone as it was a welcome change of scenery.
Alongside Romain Grosjean, regarded as a future world champion following a run of four podium finishes in five races at the end of 2013, Maldonado was given a degree of freedom to retreat from the front line and, essentially, do his own thing.
And for much of their two-year spell as team-mates, the alliance between the pair has followed that course.
While Grosjean has acted as a beacon of hope throughout the team's fall from grace—securing out-of-the-blue qualifying results, solid points finishes and even a podium in August's Belgian GP—Maldonado has been Maldonado: blisteringly quick on occasion, but inexplicably erratic and error-prone.
Grosjean's move to the new Haas team for 2016, however, will shove Maldonado back to centre stage and—with no obvious, like-for-like replacement for Grosjean available as "silly season" limps toward its conclusion—the Venezuelan is likely to begin 2016 as Team Enstone's No. 1 driver.
Whether Maldonado deserves the honour of fronting a full-blown, works outfit—as Renault's long-awaited takeover of Lotus nears completion—is debatable, yet next season will be his last chance to make an F1 team his own.
And despite F1 journalist Peter Windsor claiming as long ago as mid-2014 that Maldonado was not particularly "popular" within the Lotus environment, he already appears to be making a conscious effort to grow into the lead role.
Over the last two race weekends—in other words, since it became clear Grosjean would be leaving the team—Maldonado has performed with an increased sense of maturity, sacrificing outright speed for extra security, and he has reaped the rewards.
Although he lacked the pace of his team-mate in both Japan and Russia, failing to progress from Q2 on days when Grosjean made the top-10 shootout, Maldonado has performed steadily in racing conditions, staying out of trouble, adding valuable points to the team's tally and solidifying sixth place in the constructors' standings.
His upturn in form, having retired from three of the previous five races, is such that Maldonado can secure a third consecutive points finish for the first time in his five-year career at this weekend's United States GP (where, incidentally, he scored his first points for Lotus a year ago).
Perhaps his newfound consistency is a direct response to Lotus' current financial problems, inspiring him to drive with more responsibility and serve the team at a time the several-hundred staff members are in desperate need of some form of respite and escapism.
Or maybe this is the latest "Maldonado spike," which sees him experience a short-lived resurgence—see Spain 2012 and, indeed, his previous 2015 points finishes in Canada and Austria—only to revert to his old, wild habits almost overnight.
Yet there is a possibility that, much like Grosjean in 2013—the Frenchman, in the midst of a transitional period following his crash-strewn 2012, initially performed under the radar but soon emerged as a formidable talent—he now realises just what he could achieve with the might of Renault and Team Enstone fully behind him.
And he is now doing everything in his power to ensure that opportunity does not go to waste like so many others.
Oblivious to the value of team spirit just two years ago, a refocused, reborn Maldonado can help Lotus move on from their Romain empire.
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