This year's Formula 1 season is filled with a
plethora of rule changes from
the exceedingly gigantic engine revisions, countless aerodynamic revisions,
chassis weight increase, new harder Pirelli rubber compounds to the somewhat
insignificant choice of personal driver numbers.
These personal driver numbers will be chosen
between the numbers 2 and 99 with the No. 1 plate still being reserved for the
reigning world champion, albeit he's not required to run it if so desired, as
these personal driver numbers are designed to mimic NASCAR and Indy Cars
philosophy of driver brand recognition based upon the driver's career number
choice.
And while I don't think its solely related to
his personal number choice, nevertheless Venezuela's Pastor Maldonado's choice of 13 appears to be
somewhat unwise, as let's look at his career to date.
Maldonado made his way up the ranks like
almost all current Formula 1 drivers do, presumably starting in Go Karts before
transitioning to single seaters, where he began his march up the ladder system in Formula Renault in 2003.
Pastor's sophomore season in the Italian
series saw him crowned series champion
on the back of eight race victories - while also contesting the Formula Renault
2000 Eurocup series where he won a
further two races.
For the '05 season Maldonado graduated to the
Italian Formula 3000 series briefly, along with a short stint in World Series
by Renault before receiving a four-race ban for bad driving.
the following year the Venezuelan chose to
race in the World Series by Renault fulltime for Draco Racing where he
ultimately finished third in the championship, as controversy swirled around
him due to a technical infraction that cost him a race victory and henceforth
the series' title, yet Pastor had done
enough to spark interest in him for GP2.
For 2007 Pastor signed to drive for the
Trident GP2 team, before moving onto Piquet Sport the next season. Switching
again to ART Grand Prix in '09 where he was overshadowed by eventual titlist
Nico Hulkenberg.
Now somewhat long in-the-tooth in GP2
parlance, nevertheless the Venezuelan driver finally captured the elusive
Driver's crown for his fourth racing team, winning a total of ten victories for
Rapax, including a staggering six Feature races in-a-row, along with leading
Rapax to the Team's championship as well, ensuring his ultimate goal of
reaching the pinnacle of motorsport, Formula 1.
In 2011 Maldonado signed for the storied
Williams F1 concern, where his car number would be 12, as the rookie driver
raced alongside series veteran Rubens Barrichello in the underperforming FW34.
2012 would be Pastor's best Formula 1 season
to date, scoring his first Pole position and maiden Grand Prix win on the well
known winter testing circuit and home of the Spanish Grand Prix at Circuit de
Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, where 18 was his lucky number, as this is
Maldonado's lone podium to date.
Yet the Williams squad went into a funk over
the course of the following season where Pastor scored one solitary point for
10th place driving car number 16, whilst rookie team-mate Valtteri Bottas finished
eighth at Austin, Texas giving the team an uncharacteristically low total of
five points and finishing a lowly ninth in the Constructor's championship.
Interestingly, Pastor isn't the only
Venezuelan driver to choose the number 13, as he was actually beaten to the
task by Ernesto 'E.J. "What, Me Worry?" Viso, another hard luck
driver, who ran the number in Indy Cars for HVM Racing 'Wayback in
'Twenty-oh-Nine, and had more than his share of crashes for KV Racing
Technology during his three year span racing for the reigning Indy 500
champions between 2010-12..
As Pastor's time at Williams was short-lived,
having stated publicly that all he wanted to do was get out of the team after a
rather disappointing 2013 season, as its pretty funny how the fortunes of
Williams have improved so vastly this season, while Maldonado's new employer
Lotus has had an abysmal season to date.
With rumours suggesting that Lotus solely wanted Pastor for the enormous
multi-millions budget his PDVSA sponsorship from the Venezuelan national oil
company brings.
So far Lotus hasn't been able to get out of
its own way! Having needed to skip the first winter test completely, reportedly
due to lack of funds, while the most maligned of the three new Power Unit
suppliers Renault has been causing nothing but trouble for Lotus and Caterham
in particular with its litany of teething issues, most notably cooling
reliability as both Lotuses failed to finish the opening race Down Under in
Australia.
Yet on the positive side, both Maldonado and
team-mate Romain Grosjean managed to complete
some 40+ laps apiece during the race, the most either driver has accomplished
this season, which suggests that the Lotus may be improving.
But while the verdict's still out upon
Maldonado's future at Lotus, driving a
black (and gold) car plus the number 13 might just be two strikes against the Venezuelan's future glory
in Formula 1, if Y'all believe in the number 13 being unlucky...
