Maldonado accuses Williams of sabotage
Trust reigns at Williams where Pastor Maldonado, clearly dominated by Valtteri Bottas, openly accused his team of deliberately disadvantaging him during this session.
The qualifying session of the 2013 United States Grand Prix was notably marked by the very strong performance of Valtteri Bottas at the wheel of a Williams at its best. The Finn, who has been retained for 2014, even allowed himself the luxury of creating a 1.5-second gap with his teammate, Pastor Maldonado, in Q1 (1:37.821 against 1:39.351).
A gap that did not please the Venezuelan at all, who did not hesitate to accuse his team of having sabotaged his session: “I never got 100% out of the tires. I think, on my car, someone played with the pressure or temperature,” he said before continuing: “It’s hard to say, I think you need to ask the team, the guys working on the car. I think it’s quite clear.” The atmosphere promises to be good during the last week of collaboration between the Grove team and the winner of the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix: “More than one race then… great,” concluded Maldonado. These controversial statements echo the remarks made by the driver during a meeting with the media on Thursday: “I think I gave more to the team than they did for me.”
On Claire Williams’ side, the deputy team principal’s intention is to calm things down: (e) Qualifying offers a good dose of adrenaline to the drivers. People say things after those moments. We will come back and talk to the engineers to see what happened. (e) However, she is keen to emphasize that (e) never, at Williams, with our experience, in our history, have we done something like that. (e)
