Anyone who followed Formula 1 in the 2010s has not forgotten the colorful Venezuelan driver Pastor Maldonado. GP2 champion in 2010 with Rapax, notably against a certain Sergio Pérez, he reached the premier category in 2011 by replacing Nico Hülkenberg at Williams thanks to his sponsor, PDVSA. Blessed with raw but often uncontrollable talent, Maldonado quickly established himself as a figure as fascinating as he was controversial. Affectionately – or ironically – nicknamed “Crashtor Maldonado” by some followers, the Venezuelan was capable of the best… as well as the worst!
A true epic, Pastor Maldonado's time in F1 is marked by his fiery temperament and his audacity. By winning the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012 when he was only an outsider, in a bottom-of-the-table Williams, he scored Williams' first victory since 2004, to the cheers of a stunned public. Throughout the race, he managed to win against the championship favorites, notably Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen, whom he overlooked on the podium, without making any mistakes. This success gives him hero status in Venezuela and proves to his detractors that he is not a simple sponsored pilot.
On the podium, lifted by Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen © ERIC VARGIOLU / DPPI
Maldonado, an explosive pilot
This unforgettable day also illustrated the intrepidity of the Venezuelan pilot. While celebrating his first place, an explosion erupts in the heart of the Williams garage, giving way to a spectacular fire that ravages the facility and injures several members of the team. In a rare act of courage, Pastor Maldonado does not flee the danger: he rushes into the rubble to rescue his cousin, trapped in the middle of the flames. However, this act of bravery has often been overshadowed by the controversies surrounding his driving style and his behavior on the track.
The rest of his career is punctuated by incredible incidents on the track and in the paddock. Pastor Maldonado was not only fast, he was also unpredictable. With 146 penalties recorded in five years of presence in F1, he has become the nightmare of the race commissioners. We remember his repeated clashes with Sergio Pérez, his spectacular collision with Esteban Gutiérrez in Bahrain in 2014, his multiple blunders and so many other off-road events. Add to that verbal altercations with journalists and a sometimes disconcerting frankness in his interviews, and you obtain a character as surprising as he is comical.
Pit stop an Endurance
At the end of the 2015 season, his sponsor's financing difficulties and his reputation as “danger No. 1” on the track led Lotus to push him out. Without a steering wheel for 2016, rumors suggest that he could join the WEC in LM P2 alongside Manor, but it was only two years later that he made his return to the world of motorsport by joining DragonSpeed for the 2018-2019 super season.
Maldonado and his DragonSpeed teammates on the podium at the 6h of Shanghai in 2018 © FLORENT GOODEN / DPPI Media
Pastor Maldonado finds a new dynamic in a discipline where consistency takes precedence over pure aggressiveness. He participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in his category and finished ninth in the standings alongside Roberto González and Nathanaël Berthon and won the 2019 24 Hours of Daytonna. While he was to participate with Jota in the 2019-2020 campaign, the Venezuelan driver gave up a week at the start of the season to explore new horizons outside the circuits… and yet, in March 2023, a video posted on the Isotta Fraschini's account
From steering wheel to finance
For his reconversion, Pastor Maldonado swaps the helmet for the suit. After drawing a line under his racing career in 2019, he turned to wealth management by creating the company GPM Group with his wife, Gabriela Tarkany Maldonado. Based between Monaco and Latin America, the former Williams driver now supports wealthy clients – mainly athletes and entrepreneurs – in the management and development of their assets. This transition is not so surprising when you consider the crucial role played by Venezuelan oil sponsor PDVSA in his career, which also allowed him to develop an attraction to the financial workings.
Although he is less prolific than other former drivers on the networks, the former Lotus driver remains active on Instagram, where he shares moments of his daily life (family getaways, work meetings and charitable commitments) while taking care to stay away from the controversies that have often marked his racing career…
READ ALSO > Top 5 notable moments of Pastor Maldonado in F1
