Williams F1 Team
Sir Frank Williams believes that Pastor Maldonado has the ability to be one of the top drivers in Formula One.
Maldonado will race on with Williams into 2013, his third season with the team.
"Pastor has incredible raw pace and the ability to ring the neck of a car and find speed where others would not", he said.
"He is showing more and more maturity with each race and his dominant display at the Spanish Grand Prix showed that he can handle pressure and drive a flawless race. With another season under his belt, I’m sure that next year he can confirm his position as one of the top drivers".
"Pastor has shown this season that he is one of the fastest drivers in Formula One and has put in some stellar qualifying performances".
Maldonado will be joined on the grid by Valtteri Bottas, who replaces Bruno Senna.
"Valtteri has been part of the Williams family for three years now and I know that he’s thought of very highly of by our race engineers and others in the paddock", he said.
"His ability to assimilate information quickly is excellent, and he has shown in 2012 during Friday practice that he can quickly get up to speed at a new track. That will be important next year because the first season is always the toughest, particularly with the caliber of the other drivers".
Williams also added that the team has been pleased by the progress made with the FW34, but a little disappointed at the results.
"The FW34 was a strong car and on the whole we feel that we should have done better with the equipment we had".
"Our long run pace was consistently strong and whilst we need to improve on our qualifying pace, at certain tracks we did manage to give the top teams a run for their money over a single lap. Of course the win in Spain was memorable and showed that we can produce race winning cars".
"The rate of progression we have shown over 2011 has been very encouraging and I’m confident that with the people we have in place, 2013 will see us move further up the grid. We will be looking to build on 2012 and produce a car that can consistently finish in the points at a wide range of circuits and challenge for podiums as well".
