Posted on 2nd February 2016
Pastor Maldonado has confirmed yesterday afternoon that he will not be racing in Formula One next year as Renault prepares to announce Kevin Magnussen as his replacement.
Maldonado's position at Renault had been in doubt since the start of the year after late payments from his sponsor PDVSA, which has been hit hard by a global decline in oil prices. On Monday he confirmed he would not be driving in 2016 in a Twitter message to his fans as follows:-
'Today with the utmost humility I inform you that I will not be present on the starting grid for the 2016 F1 season. Thanks for all your messages of support, passion and concern for my future. I feel very honoured by the support of all of you and proud of my professional performance.
'I'm very thankful to God, my family, my sponsors, my friends, my fans and everybody who has helped me realise this dream of representing Venezuela in the pinnacle of motorsport.'
Maldonado signed a contract to drive for the team last September, but that was before the then struggling Lotus outfit was taken over by Renault.
Renault has now lined up Magnussen as Maldonado's replacement, with the Dane set to be announced as a Renault works driver alongside Jolyon Palmer at a team media event in Paris on Wednesday.
But this news yesterday about Maldonado is very much welcomed by many in the paddock and also by the fans as well. As I have argued previously, Maldonado does not deserve to be in F1 full stop and he has not demonstrated why he has been signed for the Lotus/Renault team for as long as he was which was supposedly based on his racing 'talent' rather than the money he brings with him and in my opinion, he was right to be shown the door and replaced by a driver who can deliver the results that Renault need on the track such as Kevin Magnussen who has a future in the sport.
Let me expand on this further if I can before people think I'm just witch-hunting Pastor for no apparent reason.
Many would say that to win a Grand Prix is an achievement and it is rightly so. But has he been able to build on this? No, he has not. If anything, he has shown that he cannot extract pace and performances from the car to even get near to achieving another win in the sport or scoring points for that matter on a regular and consistent basis which isn't good enough in the pinnacle series of motorsport.
Last season saw Lotus forced to play catch up even though they had switched to Mercedes power. But they have been able score points last season compared to the 2014 season, but still not enough to merit that seat at all. You can state the case that the Lotus team last season may not have given him the car to do so in order to prove that he was worthy of the Renault seat this season. But in my eyes, he will never be worthy of the seat he held for so long and he should have gone as early as 2014.
In my view, Maldonado is just not talented enough to be in F1; pure and simple and I just cannot understand why Lotus or now Renault did not see this sooner. If he is as talented as Renault believed and also when Lotus did too, that wouldn't stop him trying to achieve the best results on the track or even attempt to try and achieve this every weekend.
In short he didn't; all he did was crack under the pressure and show why he is not the driver many proclaim that he was; despite his success in the junior formulae.
And as for his career in Formula One, Maldonado has shown that he was clearly out of his depth from the very start. He has not performed well enough to justify his time in the sport, has failed to deliver on a regular basis for any team he has driven for, been out-qualifed by his ex-team mates Valtteri Bottas and Romain Grosjean as you would expect and I believe the only reason he was there is to provide money for the teams he drove for and not because of his talent.
There is no denying that Lotus especially experienced money troubles in the past few seasons and the money that Maldonado brought to the team was very handy and helps them with their budget and without it, they wouldn't be on the grid at that time and I do understand this.
But in conclusion, the news that Maldonado is exiting the sport this season for good will be welcomed by some pundits and fans who truly believe just like I do that Maldonado does not and will never deserve to be in a top team or even any team in Formula One.
Maldonado cannot be relied upon to bring the car home in the points for a team, he cannot keep himself out of trouble on and off the track with his driving and his attitude and most importantly of all, one race win in Formula One and a few glimpses of some form of 'talent' does not guarantee success in the sport like he seems to think.
There are many young drivers awaiting the chance to drive in F1, such as Alex Lynn or even existing drivers looking to secure a well-deserved drive in a team like Renault and who have a proven track record of success in the sport or even in the junior formulae.
So I pose the question everyone has been asking for years, why allow him to stay in the sport just because of his money? It should be based on talent, not money but that is the way Formula One operates at the moment sadly and this angers many pundits and fans with the direction teams have been taking regarding driver choices over the last few seasons.
In my opinion, Maldonado is out of his depth in the sport, he is just not talented enough to be in the sport and I am glad that this fact has finally been accepted at long last and the paddock have fully realized what he truly does bring to a team (or lack of) and as a result; the sport would be better off without him.
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
