Pastor Maldonado drops 5 places on the grid in Montreal
After changing the gearbox on his Williams, Pastor Maldonado will drop 5 places on the starting grid and will consequently start from the 22nd position, behind Timo Glock.
After making a mistake in Q2 and crashing his Williams into the famous “Wall of Champions,” thus ruining his chances of qualifying for Q3, Pastor Maldonado was set to start from 17th place on the grid for the 2012 Canadian Grand Prix.
However, his team was forced to change the gearbox on the Venezuelan’s FW34, resulting in a penalty of 5 places on the starting grid, as stipulated by the regulations, relegating him to 22nd position. It is the second consecutive time that the native of Maracay has been penalized with a five-place demotion for a gearbox change.
Consequently, Heikki Kovalainen, Vitaly Petrov, Jean-Eric Vergne, Pedro de la Rosa, and Timo Glock will respectively move up one spot on the starting grid, occupying positions 17th to 21st. However, Pastor Maldonado was confident after qualifying about his chances to gain positions during the race: « In my last lap, I simply took too much of the curb and ended up hitting the wall, which is disappointing because I was on a good lap that could have sent me into Q3. The car seemed better this week than the qualifying suggests, and we have a good race pace, so we will have good chances to gain positions. »
