A favourite for victory this weekend, Pastor Maldonado is reportedly lucky to be gearing up to race in the Principality at all.

Bild newspaper recalls that the Venezuelan, who defied his ‘pay driver’ critics by winning for Williams in Spain two weeks ago, was actually banned after an horror incident on the streets of Monte Carlo seven years ago.

Racing in the Renault World Series in 2005, the then 25-year-old ignored yellow flags before striking and severely injuring a marshal.

Organisers of the Monaco grand prix reacted by banning Maldonado from the street circuit for life.

Germany’s Bild revealed that Maldonado’s wealthy father intervened, promising to pay for the marshal’s recovery and rehabilitation from a broken back.

That intervention saved Maldonado’s future formula one career, as no team would hire a regular driver that cannot participate in the sport’s most famous race.

Maldonado is therefore a favourite for victory this weekend, with his Williams now acknowledged as arguably the best in the entire field when it comes to slow-speed traction.

And in his four seasons of GP2 between 2007 and 2010, Maldonado finished on the podium each time, winning and achieving pole position twice. In 2006, he won in Formula Renault.

Last year, in qualifying for his first Monaco grand prix, he qualified his then struggling Williams in eighth place, comfortably ahead of Rubens Barrichello.

“He is very good at Monaco,” agreed Barrichello.

In the 2011 race, Maldonado was fighting for fifth when he crashed with Lewis Hamilton.

“If the last sector in Barcelona is the marker, then the Williams will be unbeatable in Monte Carlo,” Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport quotes Dr Helmut Marko as saying.

The breakthrough success in Barcelona has piqued the interest of Maldonado’s native Venezuela, having not had an F1 points scorer since the ignominious Johnny Cecotto in 1983.

“My country will be following every second of the next race,” Maldonado is quoted by O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper.

“I love street circuits, this one in particular. My style of driving fits perfectly with Monaco. I am ready to get another great result.”

The sidepod of Nick Heidfeld’s Renault exploded as the German retired from the Hungarian grand prix.
A fan’s video posted on Youtube showed a marshal being struck by the debris and limping away, and Swiss newspaper Blick said it is “unclear whether the man was injured” badly.

Veteran Heidfeld admitted he has “never seen anything like that before” and that he was scared.

“I had a fire in Barcelona, but I wasn’t worried there at all -– but this one got quite close. This time I felt the heat, so I had to get out quickly,” said the German.

As for whether he is hurt, Heidfeld confirmed to Auto Motor und Sport: “No, nothing happened to me.”

And he joked to Bild newspaper: “I’m not burned — my suit was black even before I got in (the car)!”

Renault team boss Eric Boullier however appeared to blame Heidfeld for the incident, insisting that the car is “not designed to stay running (during a pitstop) on high revs for so long”.

Sebastien Buemi has emerged from a terrifying incident during a formula one demonstration drive in Japan.
The Swiss driver was at the wheel of a recent Red Bull single seater in Chiba, Japan, when a member of the event’s staff ran in front of him.

22-year-old Buemi, who had just performed some donuts at the event to raise money for earthquake victims, headed off for another demonstration run when the Japanese marshal ran down a steep embankment at the side of the road.

Realising he was about to be struck, the man – wearing a shirt marked ‘staff’ and carrying a clipboard – jumped over the front wing and also cleared the cockpit but was struck by the rear of Buemi’s car at about 50kph.

He was shaken but basically unhurt and walking immediately afterwards, while the Toro Rosso driver also escaped injury.

“I can’t say anything about it until Red Bull has clarified the matter,” Buemi told the Swiss newspaper Blick in Tokyo.

More rain is headed to the already wet Yeongam venue.

With only 40 minutes to go before the scheduled race start at 3pm, plenty of earlier rain has soaked the new Korean layout and grid.

For the Hyundai support race, there was a crash on the first lap and the rest of the race took place behind the safety car as marshals struggled to clear the cars.

Fears about a safety car start for the grand prix eased along with the easing rain a couple of hours ago, but the radar is now showing more showers on the horizon.

“It feels like it is going to rain again before the race starts,” said a media source at Yeongam at 2.15pm.

A new transponder system and an wayward marshal are to blame for Felipe Massa’s Spa head-start not being noticed in Belgium two weeks ago.

The Brazilian driver explained at Monza that he did not realise he had overshot his grid box because he sits so low in the cockpit of his Ferrari.

But why the FIA’s technology, and observers at the side of the track, did not notice the error is currently the subject of an investigation.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport reports that the automatic jump-start detection system in 2010 is new.

The transponder reacts more sensitively than the old one, meaning that false starts can be detected even when the driver is located too far to the left or the right of the centre of the starting box.

But the glitch in the system is that, because the sensors are so strong, the car and track transponders can locate one another even when – as in Massa’s case – the car is positioned too far forwards.

Previously, the sensors would not locate one another, and Charlie Whiting would receive an alarm on the starter gantry that a driver is out of place.

But the back-up system is a human one, with marshals standing beside the track holding a sign with the driver’s grid number.

“I looked at the marshal next to the grid, he put his sign down which to me is the signal that everything is right,” Massa said.

Countryman Rubens Barrichello said he noticed on the grid that Massa was getting a head-start.

“I knew he had missed his box, but what do I do?” said the veteran.

F1 is moving to reduce the risk posed by flying wheels.

Last year, GP2 driver Henry Surtees died when a stray wheel from a crashed car struck him on the head.

There was a similar incident during the final practice session at Hockenheim last weekend, with Timo Glock narrowly avoiding a bouncing wheel after Vitantonio Liuzzi’s crash.

“I was lucky that I left a bit of room behind Liuzzi in the Motodrom to warm up my brakes.  Otherwise I would have been right behind him,” the German told Auto Motor und Sport.

A tether on Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari broke in his Monaco crash this year.

F1 introduced wheel tethers in 1998, connecting the wheels to the chassis.  They are made of a special polymer called polybenzoaoxide or Zylon.

But flying wheels continue to pose a risk to drivers as well as to spectators, as seen in Melbourne in 2001 with the death of a marshal behind the spectator fencing, and in 2000 when a marshal was killed at Monza.

“Tethers are of great concern to us,” said McLaren’s engineering director Paddy Lowe.

“We discussed the issue at the Technical Working Group and we have agreed for next year to introduce a second tether on every corner,” he revealed to reporters during a teleconference.