As we were discussing the Williams F1 team in our Hungarian Grand Prix review podcast, we mentioned the fact that the team had lost a lot of potential points due to Pastor Maldonado’s “incidents” on track. Now that could be said of any team that has an incident that reduces them to mid-field or even out of the race but it has become a bit of a recurring theme for Maldonado with five incidents in six races since his win in Spain.
Interesting then that Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan told AUTOSPORT that the team isn’t dwelling on this fact. Contextually the team look at the points haul they have so far and juxtapose that with last year’s performance and it has increased by a factor of 10. Every point in Formula One is worth big dollars in revenue distribution so this is a real success for the team comparative to 2011.
No team in F1 overlooks missed opportunities and it hits Williams F1 just the same but if you consider where they’ve come from and where the potential going forward could be, it really is a case of taking the opportunities when they present themselves and not dwelling on the altercations that cost the team vital points.
Perhaps this calm approach is really the level-headed way to approach what the team feel is a steady progression toward the sharp end of the grid and in that, I wish them much success.
I would also argue that no one is more aware of the lost points than Maldonado and with Senna having a challenging year as far as points scoring performances, perhaps this will be taken into account for the driver lineup in 2013. What do you think? If you were in charge of the driver lineup for 2013, would you make any changes? Remember that Maldonado and Senna both bring cash with them.
