31/07/10
Pastor impressive : Fifth victory, consolidates his lead and imposes a record
A race filled with suspense and drama, similar to an Alfred Hitchcock film that included, three starts, accidents in the track, safety car on sight and overheating cars, the Venezuelan driver Pastor Maldonado became the absolute leading man in race XIII of GP2 and even the Championship, when he obtained his fifth consecutive victory in the featuring races, best lap and taking a 26 point advantage in the lead, aside from all this also establishing a category record. All of this took place over the demanding Hungaroring track in Hungary.

The drama began in the recognition lap, when Davide Valsecchi´s car (iSport) who was set to start second, turned off. After the heat up lap and ready for the start, something similar happened to Adrian Zaugg (Trident) for which reason the start was aborted. Another lap took place and right when they were ready to start once again, the pole position holder, Sam Bird (ART) lifted his hand announcing that his car was also having trouble.

Due to the trouble experienced by Valsecchi and Bird, Oliver Turvey from iSport, passes from the third place to the first and Pastor from the fourth place to the second place on the grid, to finally start the race. I a savage start, Maldonado immediately passes the Brit and takes the lead, which he was able to maintain until the finish line, obtaining his fifth victory of the year, with which he sets a record being the only driver in GP2 history to obtain five featuring race victories in a row: in Istanbul, Valencia, Silverstone, Hockenheim and now Hungaroring, all of these have hear the Venezuelan National Anthem.

¨It was a very complicated race, specially in the beginning, since the cars suffer a lot when you have to start again or when the start of the race is delayed, once you are on the track: the reheating, the pressure levels or even the tires become critical¨ described Pastor euphoric due to his new victory.

With the advantage from the very start, Pastor takes the first curve without any trouble and the rest of the drivers get to that zone, there was an accident: Jules Bianchi (ART) lightly bumps into Giacomo Ricci (DPR) and as a byproduct, Jules Bianchi´s vehicle falls into the sand trap but manages its´ way back to the center of the track bumping into Dani Clos (Racing Engineering) he then turns and collides head first with Ho Pin Tung (Dams) who later receives an involuntary bump from the Venezuelan driver Rodolfo Gonzalez (Arden), provoking a race interruption with the red flag so that the drivers could receive medical attention.

After twelve minutes, the already accident filled race was resumed but with the pace car in the track, with which they had to go around one lap to stabilize the level of the vehicles which were stopped waiting for the situation to normalize itself. The following lap the safety car leaves the track and yet the cars had to go for another lap without passing, as dictated by the authorities.

¨I would say this was the toughest moment: the two previous starts consumed a great amount of tires and the car levels were out of the norm, making the first two laps incredibly hard to drive, so you had to go with your concentration at its max¨ added the driver sponsored by PDVSA, CANTV, Bandes, Bancoex, Atún Paraguaná, Máquinas 2000, Mindeportes and IND.

Once my car’s levels evened out, the race did not present further complications for me. We had a very high pace that increased in each lap, due to this we made the best lap several times. Due to the advantage we had, which was over ten seconds, we extended a bit more our entrance to the pits and when we finally entered it was perfect and flawless. The communication with the team is unbeatable¨ said filled with excitement the Rapax Team driver.

With today’s victory Pastor Maldonado makes 77 points, bettering the total made by the 2008 champion Giorgio Pantano (76) and there are still seven rounds remaining before the 2010 season finalizes. ¨Everything is going very well: tomorrow we are going for more points, we will work very hard to have a great start and get into the heat. Here (Hungaroring) it’s very hard to pass, but I think we will do another good race¨ stated Pastor.

The German driver Christian Vietoris (Racing Engineering) followed Maldonado in a great performance, holding off the desperate attemps of the Mexican driver Sergio Perez to pass him, but these were in vain. Turvey was fourth and the Dutch driver Giedo Van Der Garde finished off fifth in race XIII. Due to his victory Pastor will be starting eighth, as dictated by GP2 regulations which invert the arriving order of the featuring race in the first eight position for the Sunday grid.

¨I would like to send a very special shout out to the Venezuelan delegation for their great performance in the Central American and Caribbean games. Those valuable people over there and me here in Europe, leaving very high the name of Venezuela¨ finalized Maldonado.

Tomorrow Sunday race XIV will take place, right before the Hungary Formula 1 Grand Prix, for twenty eight laps. The light turns green at 4:05am Venezuela (10:30 am local). Fox Sports and MTV will be broadcasting the race.


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