Pastor Maldonado believes 2013 was his best season in Formula 1 despite struggling to finish in the points.
It was his final season with the Williams F1 Team, as he now moves to Lotus to race alongside Romain Grosjean.
The Venezuelan driver only managed to score on one occasion: 10th at the Hungarian Grand Prix, which was helped by a number of retirements ahead of him.
He was consistently matched by his rookie team-mate Valtteri Bottas and lost out in the qualifying head-to-head 12-7. Despite scoring more points and taking his maiden F1 victory in 2012, he feels that this season was the best of his career so far.
"Thinking about the results and thinking about what I experienced in F1 for the past three years, I think this is my best year, even though the results are not there," he told AUTOSPORT.
"I learned a lot from all the mistakes, especially from a technical point of view, and I think I will help the team where I will be [Lotus] not to make the same mistakes. I feel experienced, I feel ready. I had so many good races this year with good pace, no penalties. I was in a good learning process.
"The speed was always there because even in my first year I was quicker than Rubens [Barrichello], who was very quick and very experienced. Still the speed is there, you don’t get stupid overnight. I just need to have a good car, good support from the team and try to improve myself in every way."
The 28-year-old feels confident that he can quickly adapt to next year's regulation: "It is the same for everyone so I don’t see the point in being worried about it," he said. "We need to adapt ourselves, both team and driver, for these conditions and I think I am quite good at adapting myself quickly to new things and I hope to be competitive from the beginning."
His new boss Eric Boullier believes Lotus can help tame Maldonado, telling Sky Sports F1: "He's a friendly guy, he's a fast guy. He won a race in Formula 1 and it was on merit - it was not gained from some lottery.
"I think we just need to make sure he can keep his focus - actually similar issues we had with Romain last year - keep his focus on track. I'm sure that with the proper support and team around him, we can do something nice with Pastor."
He added: "Maybe there is still some fine-tuning to do with him. And I think one the most important parts, having talked to him already, is obviously feeling the support of the team behind him."
I agree to be honest, I see plenty of potential in Maldonado and his race victory in Spain last season was on merit. Like Grosjean in 2012, he just needs a bit of help to become more consistent and less erratic. It is quite a job, but I think it can be done.
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| (c) Octane Photographic |
The Venezuelan driver only managed to score on one occasion: 10th at the Hungarian Grand Prix, which was helped by a number of retirements ahead of him.
He was consistently matched by his rookie team-mate Valtteri Bottas and lost out in the qualifying head-to-head 12-7. Despite scoring more points and taking his maiden F1 victory in 2012, he feels that this season was the best of his career so far.
"Thinking about the results and thinking about what I experienced in F1 for the past three years, I think this is my best year, even though the results are not there," he told AUTOSPORT.
"I learned a lot from all the mistakes, especially from a technical point of view, and I think I will help the team where I will be [Lotus] not to make the same mistakes. I feel experienced, I feel ready. I had so many good races this year with good pace, no penalties. I was in a good learning process.
"The speed was always there because even in my first year I was quicker than Rubens [Barrichello], who was very quick and very experienced. Still the speed is there, you don’t get stupid overnight. I just need to have a good car, good support from the team and try to improve myself in every way."
The 28-year-old feels confident that he can quickly adapt to next year's regulation: "It is the same for everyone so I don’t see the point in being worried about it," he said. "We need to adapt ourselves, both team and driver, for these conditions and I think I am quite good at adapting myself quickly to new things and I hope to be competitive from the beginning."
His new boss Eric Boullier believes Lotus can help tame Maldonado, telling Sky Sports F1: "He's a friendly guy, he's a fast guy. He won a race in Formula 1 and it was on merit - it was not gained from some lottery.
"I think we just need to make sure he can keep his focus - actually similar issues we had with Romain last year - keep his focus on track. I'm sure that with the proper support and team around him, we can do something nice with Pastor."
He added: "Maybe there is still some fine-tuning to do with him. And I think one the most important parts, having talked to him already, is obviously feeling the support of the team behind him."
I agree to be honest, I see plenty of potential in Maldonado and his race victory in Spain last season was on merit. Like Grosjean in 2012, he just needs a bit of help to become more consistent and less erratic. It is quite a job, but I think it can be done.
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