Last Sunday proved that Pastor Maldonado is no mere ‘pay driver’.

“If he was a fool, he would not be with us, no matter how much money he brings,” Sir Frank Williams is quoted by Brazil’s Globo Esporte.

Venezuelan Maldonado, whose links to the state owned oil company PDVSA and president Hugo Chavez controversially deliver many millions to Williams’ Oxfordshire based team, became F1′s fifth different winner of 2012 last weekend in Spain.

It has helped him to shake off the ‘pay driver’ insult, Williams insisting he is now a potential world champion instead.

“Without a doubt. He is very fast and makes no mistakes,” the newly 70-year-old Briton said.

Williams does, however, acknowledge that Maldonado’s money was a key factor in the decision to sign him.

“Yes, it was to some extent,” he said. “I don’t deny that. But he’s also a real driver. He fully deserves to be on the team, with or without money.

“The truth is that if you don’t have money, you don’t get to be in formula one,” added Williams.

Team shareholder Toto Wolff agrees: “If you want to race in GP2, you need a few million pounds. So, the drivers need not only to be fast and talented, but able to attract the sponsors.

“So let’s forget this thing about ‘pay drivers’,” he insisted.

Triple world champion Nelson Piquet, however, has some lingering doubts.

He ran Maldonado in his own GP2 team some years ago, and this week recalled a driver who was often “too aggressive” and made too many mistakes.

“We’re not talking about a guy who shone in his youth, like Nico Rosberg,” said the famous Brazilian, “or someone like Lewis Hamilton, who always had everything he needed thanks to Ron Dennis.

“In GP2, when you don’t stand out in your second year, you begin to be doubted. In Maldonado’s case, he only shone in his fourth year.

“Perhaps because of this he only made it to formula one as a paying driver, without having anything special, apparently. He was perceived as just a good pilot, but clearly no Alonso.

“Now he was at the right place at the right time but he still managed to beat Alonso in Spain as well as another world champion, Kimi (Raikkonen). So hats off to him.”

Felipe Massa has hinted that Ferrari should consider moving on if major improvements to the F2012 do not push the team forwards this weekend.

The Maranello based team played down the extent of the upgrade seen in Barcelona on Friday, but one media pundit surmised that “almost everything is different” compared with the car in Bahrain three weeks ago.

It might, therefore, be seen as a last roll of the dice for Ferrari, who could therefore be advised to turn attention to the 2013 project should the upgrades not work as expected.

But when that was put to Fernando Alonso in Barcelona, the Spaniard answered: “I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”

Brazilian Massa doesn’t agree.

“If you have a car, you introduce a number of significant changes and you don’t get the response you expected, it means that the project is not good,” he is quoted by Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper.

“You would have to leave it in order to create a new base,” added Massa.

But Alonso doesn’t agree with his teammate’s final point, either.

When asked if the disappointing F2012 could nonetheless be used as the basis of Ferrari’s 2013 project, he insisted: “I think so. Yes.”

Narain Karthikeyan has played down reports he could lose his seat at HRT because of a lack of sponsorship.

An Indian newspaper this week said the 35-year-old is a million euros short of guaranteeing his place at the struggling Spanish team through November’s Brazil finale.

“Right now, everything is as it should be,” he is quoted by France’s autohebdo.fr.

“Early in the season, (team boss) Luis (Perez Sala) said that if I was not close enough to my teammate, there is a chance I will not finish the season.

“That was put into my contract, but for now I respect all the conditions. There is no reason that I will not be driving (the rest of) this season,” added Karthikeyan.

He admits, however, to some frustration about HRT’s continuing rear-of-the-field position.

“To be honest I wasn’t expecting the start of 2012 to be on the same lines as last year,” the Indian driver told the Hindustan Times newspaper.

“Yes I expected teething problems but not to this extent.”

He also admits he expected the team to test at Mugello last week.

“Personally speaking, I would’ve preferred some seat time at Mugello since I didn’t get any pre-season testing compared to my teammate who did the Jerez test with the old car,” said Karthikeyan.

“I was originally told that we would do the Mugello test but we decided to focus on putting the car together instead.”

Some F1 teams work to manipulate the performance of their two drivers, according to Fritz d’Orey.
Now 73, Brazilian d’Orey contested grands prix at the end of the 50s and remains an eager spectator.

He said on the SporTV programme ‘Linha de Chegada’ this week that Ferrari manipulated the situation some years ago to ensure Rubens Barrichello was not as fast as his number 1 teammate Michael Schumacher.

“Alain Prost told me at a dinner in Paris that they did it to Barrichello when he was going too strongly in relation to Schumacher,” he said.

Another legendary Brazilian driver, 73-year-old Bird Clemente, agrees: “That’s right. I’m sure it still exists.

“The team as well as the sponsors are making a big investment. To some extent, it is theatre.”

The FIA has proposed to scrap its controversial mid-season clampdown on blown exhausts.
Silverstone 2011 has been the scene of a highly-charged political saga about the technology, with major players Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari all involved.

As Red Bull and McLaren battled over the extent and details of the clampdown, Ferrari was left smiling on Saturday as it came closer than ever in 2011 to the front of the field.

“Normally on tracks like this we’d be further down the road,” acknowledged Red Bull pole sitter Mark Webber.

“There might be a bit of a form card starting to build, but we need some more races to see if that is the case.”

Asked if he thinks his Australian friend is right, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso said: “It’s a difficult question to answer.”

It might never have to be answered, as the governing body is now proposing to definitively end the complicated debate and revert to the pre-Silverstone rules whilst waiting for a seamless ban in 2012.

The FIA said in a statement that the status quo will remain for Silverstone, but beyond that “the viability of returning to the pre-Silverstone set-ups and strategies” is being discussed.

“If the teams are in unanimous agreement, the FIA is prepared to adopt this arrangement until the end of the current season,” the Paris federation added.

Toro Rosso’s current drivers cannot relax even if they have been confirmed for the 2011 season.

That is the warning of Dr Helmut Marko, motor racing consultant at Red Bull, the Faenza based team’s owner.

There have been mixed messages from Toro Rosso recently: boss Franz Tost insisting that the drivers are staying put, but Red Bull-contracted pair Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi sounding less bullish about their future.

“The drivers must confirm themselves and develop,” Marko said in an interview with Austria’s laola1.at.

“Of course, moves like when Alguersuari crashed into the back of Buemi should not happen.

“At the moment it is looking good (for them), but with Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne, we have two very fast juniors,” added Marko.

He indicated that Ricciardo and Vergne can expect to get some F1 laps under their belts at the post Abu-Dhabi young driver test.

“November is still quite a long way away, but it would be a logical consequence of our junior programme,” said Marko.

“To what extent and for which team (they will test) has not been decided yet,” he added.