Maldonado was close to Ferrari deal: "Many teams were interested"

Pastor Maldonado is known to many Formula 1 fans as a lumpy pilot who could only drive Formula 1 for five years thanks to Venezuelan oil. Every now and then, however, he was also pretty fast. In 2012 he even won the Spanish Grand Prix at speed. According to Ferrari, that speed brought him into the picture for 2014.

"Many teams were interested in talking to me and my entourage, perhaps not for the short term, as everyone knew I had a long-term contract with Williams. We started talking to other teams and one of them was Ferrari...", he says in the RadioBox podcast from Motorbox.com.

However, Ferrari finally chose Kimi Raikkonen and Maldonado took his place at Lotus. At that time, it did not seem a bad outcome for the Venezuelan. Lotus was very competitive in 2013 and finished just behind Ferrari in the constructors' championship. However, the switch to hybrid engines was tough for Lotus.

The Renault engine couldn't keep up with the competition at all and was also unreliable. The team quickly lost sponsors and by the end of 2015 it had run out of money, ending Maldonado's career. Although he did get an offer to ride with Sauber in 2015, he turned it down. According to him the team was not competitive enough and in addition it would later turn out that the team had already offered too many drivers a contract.