Bottas says Maldonado’s last-lap move was ‘unfair’

2013 Japanese Grand Prix

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Valtteri Bottas says Pastor Maldonado risked a collision between the two Williams drivers with his last-lap move at the chicane.

Maldonado lunged down the inside of his team mate to take 16th place as they approached the finishing line.

“In the end the move he made for me there was no, for me, any space to keep on the track so I don’t think it’s really fair,” Bottas told the BBC after the race.

“If I would have not go straight from the chicane we would have crashed so I think the racing shouldn’t be like that.”

Maldonado said the move was “close but quite clean”.

“I got the position,” he said, “I was faster than him.”

He defended his decision to take the risk for a lowly position: “For sure it’s not making any big difference but when you are a racer you always want to take the position on the others.”

Maldonado added: “The strategy from my car it was completely wrong but the pace today we were strong a lot. We got the hundred percent from our car.”

2013 Japanese Grand Prix

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Image © Williams/LAT

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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38 comments on “Bottas says Maldonado’s last-lap move was ‘unfair’”

  1. Don’t agree with Bottas on this one, I think it was fine. Bottas just tried to hang it around the outside, which was never going to happen.

    1. @philereid Really? I’m not sure if you are trying to be funny or not. What’s certain is that Maldonado did a Senna and Bottas didn’t do a Prost.

      1. @peartree Well, he didn’t do anything wrong. He got along side him and he didn’t force him wide, there was no squeazing. Bottas should have seen he broke late and tried to cut back under him. At that point, Maldonado has the track position.

        1. Maldonado’s judgment isn’t in question. We know he’s aggressive to the point of suicide. In this case he went so deep into the corner he had barely half a wheel on the track – pushing his own teammate right off, putting him and his car in danger. How can that possibly be right, for 0 points (and not even close to a points finish)?
          Maybe he should he get billed for pointless damage caused to the team’s cars.

    2. I agree with Bottas. It was a let-me-through-or-we-will-crash move. It reminded me Perez on Alonso at Monaco. This isn’t a fair way to gain positions and pretty dangerous, especially for teammates. They could have taken each other out, luckily we got Bottas who’s got some brains.

      1. Perez on Alonso in Monaco was a good move.

    3. Maldonado couldn’t even make the turn without cutting the chicane. That should have been a penalty.

  2. It’s probably a bit of pride and a case of going one better than the rookie, for Maldonado really. Bottas is probably safe for next year, I’d say Maldonado is less so, so he’s probably doing anything possible to secure his future. Even if it means playing a little dirty.

    1. @jamesf1 Actually it’s probably the other way around with who is safe for next year, given the millions Maldonado brings in.

      1. Yes, but Bottas brings money, too. Probably not in the Venezuela category, but Bottas brought a Finnish company, Wihuri, as a sponsor to Williams. People tend to forget Valteri is also a pay driver.

        1. I doubt they’re paying as much as PDVSA. Anyway, Maldonado has a point and been closer to the points more often than Bottas. I know the car is terrible, but Bottas hasn’t impressed like he was touted to, except for one good qualifying session.

          1. Let’s remember Bottas is a rookie, and his most recent racing and championship entry before F1, was GP3.

          2. I don’t think you can say anything about whether Bottas impressed or not because that Williams in the worst dog of a car Williams ever made.
            Expecting some big race from Bottas in that car is too much.
            The fact that he fights equally with Maldonado in qualifying and races i think is impressive enough.

      2. I believe the Venezuelan money is in serious doubt

  3. If someone would do a move like that on me I would be very tempted to just hold my line and probably crash especially if it was my teammate.. To give a little lesson that you can’t always expect the other to move aside when you pull a kamikaze move like that.

    1. @alexanderfin Tempted to agree with you here. If BOT had stood his ground and let the crash happen, MAL would be correctly blamed for causing both cars to crash at the last corner.

    2. Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
      13th October 2013, 20:36

      I definitely would’ve held my ground and just binned both cars. Honestly, no points for 16th & 17th, so not my worry. I think the ‘bonzi’ move by Maldonado is simply unexplainable. There was no reason to do something stupid like that, unless your ego was a bit hurt by getting beat by your lesser teammate.

      1. Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
        13th October 2013, 20:37

        bansai not bonzi.

  4. “For sure it’s not making any big difference but when you are a racer you always want to take the position on the others.”

    Fully agreed Pastor.

    1. Yes, they should, and thankfully do, race hard for 16th etc. I don’t know why anyone would think racing hard, even it’s not for points, wouldn’t be acceptable, I love it!

  5. Jelle van der Meer (@)
    13th October 2013, 11:33

    Wish Maldonaldo is not on the grid next year, he has been in so many incidents mainly due to his over the limit aggression that except for his Money no teams are interested in him.

  6. Kinda feel sorry for both of them driving that turd of a car in the void that separates the back of the midfield and the front of the backmarkers. Seems like the only competition they have is each other which is a shame because they both seem to be decent drivers are more than good enough to be in F1.

    But I guess someone has to be last.

  7. “Quite clean” is brilliant, you could interpret that any way you like. Reminded me of Senna and Prost – except it had no significance anywhere except the team’s repair bill.

    I hope Pat Symonds sorts it out next year.

  8. Most of the time I’d side with Bottas rather than Maldonado, but I have to say this time I’m in Maldonado’s camp. Yeah it was a bit bansai, but he saw a chance and went for it (its the sort of thing we praised Kobayashi for in the past). Yes it made no difference because they both weren’t going to score points, but he went for it anyway and I admire that.

  9. Did you guys even see this move? Calling it “unfair” would be like calling Hitler “kind of a bad guy”. Have a look for yourself http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/f1/uutiset.shtml/2013/10/1818745/bottas-maldonadon-ohitus-oli-epareilu Maldonado is clearly intentionally pushing Bottas of the track to get the 16th place.

    1. When I first watched I thought Maldonado passed fair and square. But seeing it again it looks like you’re right. Hell, Maldonado used all of the track and more. He even went off the track. There was no room at all for Bottas.

  10. Cassimiro Violante
    13th October 2013, 13:33

    Bottas forgets what he did in Korea when Pastor was forced to give way to Perez and others to avoid a collision in the last laps when Pastor was in the points. He took advantage of it and made it against Pastor. Now he simply can not complain. Just keep your big mouth closed and race.

  11. Jack (@jackisthestig)
    13th October 2013, 18:50

    Does it matter if they did crash, it was only for 16th, absolutely dire for a team like Williams.

  12. Pastor made a petty move to support the ego he has, and thus pushed out Bottas in the tightest area of Suzuka. I only saw one guy make a clean pass there and it was for sure not Maldonado on Bottas.

  13. The fact is, he had to go off track to make the move stick. Not to mention it took avoiding action from Bottas to prevent anything serious. I think that makes it pretty obvious Maldonado was in the wrong.

  14. Maldonado is a crappy, ugly racing driver.

    1. Jack (@jackisthestig)
      14th October 2013, 11:18

      And you’re the love child of Ayrton Senna and Brad Pitt?

      1. @jackisthestig I dont quite understand what youre getting at, here. But I will take a guess.

        1) No one expects him to drive like Ayrton, but the number of times this guy has trashed a Williams is unacceptable. Any time I see a Williams going off track or into the gravel, I know it is Pastor. it is every time, it has been like this for going on three seasons. The guy is not great. Wheel to wheel, I cringe. Why?

        2) He is an ugly driver with the moves he makes typically being brutish, clumsy and unprofessional. Lunging at other drivers during qualifying in Monaco or bashing his teammate off track, regardless – every time the guy is in an incident it ends up being his fault. His win last year was but a flash in the pan, the likes of which we will never see again. He feels a sense of entitlement to drive a faster car, causing him to perform more ugly racing moves in what he believes is too slow of a car.

  15. Eat that failure, dont cry, next one will be better, just like Grosjean did.

  16. The look on Bottas face during driver post race interviews looked like he was going to murder someone!

  17. Quote from BBC….

    ” Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams refused to apportion blame but said the team would review the incident with the drivers.

    The race stewards felt it was a racing incident, that Maldonado won the corner fairly and that Bottas could have backed off at any point but chose to keep fighting. ”

    At least it was investigated.

  18. F1 drivers can be rated by strategy/driving skills/speed/balls. For sure Pastor is not a good race strategist (Alonso is a magician doing that), but in the skills/speed/balls categories he has the required and more. He needs to settle down, because his aggressiveness makes him look like a truck driver sometimes. He tried to do the same he did on Bottas yesterday on Alonso in Melbourne 2012, with no good results; “bad moment”… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-WVbzgDpVI . But the prhase “I was quicker than him, I think it was possible, EVEN IN THE LAST LAP” means tha he prefers figthing for 5th than driving quietly at 6th. Here a word from god, for all who loves F1 competition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_XFTHGB2n2g

  19. Maldonado is at least bringing people to talk about williams, must be horrible to win a GP last year and now fight for 14-15 place, the contract is sealed PDVSA money can only be at williams or huge penalty, so Pastor can’t take it to lotus or Force India, he may feel frustrated is not winning or at least Q3ing often, but in the other hand he is lucky as other way makdonado ass kicking by Bottas will be far more evident.
    Sad wiliams story again….

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