Maldonado stays at Williams for 2012

[ajprice]

No word on Rubens or anyone else yet, but Maldonado is staying put.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96608
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/159962...

[Streps]

Rubens vs Sutil for the other seat?

Cant say i like Maldonado..
Williams must need the cash.

[Melvin Udall]

Would be a step down for Sutil, I feel. FI seem to be getting quite strong of late. Still, if he is out of a seat at FI then Williams is as good as any other team excluding McMerc, Merc, Ferrari, and Redbull.

[Life Saab Itch]

That's a shame.

I'd prefer to see Trulli and Massa stay than him.

I think he's abellend and his behaviour has been atrocious at times all the way through his career.

[spunkytherabbit]

Maldonado, the Pedro Diniz of his generation.

I know Frank is a 'go down with the ship' man and you can't do anything but admire him for that, but they must be in so much debt if the team have to continue to stoop this low employing this guy.

Again.

Edited by spunkytherabbit on Friday 2nd December 09:58

[skinny]

lets face it, the way the car is at the moment, wouldn't matter who was driving it. better to get some money in from teh drivers as it's not going to be coming from the results.

[El Guapo]

skinny said:

lets face it, the way the car is at the moment, wouldn't matter who was driving it. better to get some money in from teh drivers as it's not going to be coming from the results.

They may be thinking of building a new car for next year.

[TonyHetherington]

El Guapo said:

They may be thinking of building a new car for next year.

There's only so many times a team can say that

[Henry Fiddleton]

They have got very little money to build a proper new car!

Time to stop kidding ourselves, Williams are done. Next years will be this years car hashed together for the Renault block, and updated to regs with a few design features.

2013 it will be game over. Neman Haas have called it a day for this year!

[woof]

I don't think there's a fan nor a person in the paddock that would want to see Williams disappear from the grid.

It would be a great shame

[Streps]

I think they made a huge mistake with the split from BMW.

[Jungles]

Williams needs the money and Maldonado is a competent driver. Relative to Barrichello, he hasn't done any worse than what Hulkenberg did last year.

I would be very very sad to see Sutil step down from Force India to join Williams. He's a very talented driver and has been a big part in Force India's growth from a tag-along team to one of the best mid-fielders. But if Williams releases Barrichello, and VJM decides to replace Sutil (presumably with Hulkenberg), then Sutil is probably the best driver for the slot.

[gtdc]

I'm sure they said that they didn't require their drivers to bring any money for 2012. Which seemed odd.

[anonymous-user]

Jungles said:

Williams needs the money and Maldonado is a competent driver. Relative to Barrichello, he hasn't done any worse than what Hulkenberg did last year.

Oh good, so he was only beaten by an ageing midfield runner, a year or two past his retirement date................

They need the money, end of story.

[JMC1]

This would be okay to have a pay driver if they had a proper star in the No 1 seat.
After all it did not matter to Piquet having Rebaque as his team mate at Brabham when Piquet became world champion. First you have to find a star for the number 1 seat...... hey wait a minute what about Raikkonen......... oh they blew that. So sad Williams was my fav number 1 team back in the Jonesy days.

[rallycross]

You can guarantee that when it comes to driver choices, Williams will cock it up.
They always seem to do this, and its only going to get worse as they have no money and only poor results.

Rubens should have told them where to go a few months ago when they said they wouldnt give him an answer.

[Henry Fiddleton]

Agree with one of the above re Sutil- a shame to see him move down the field, when really he should be joining the likes of Merc or staying put! It always good to see the old style type of driver progression,join F1, spend afew seasons getting better and progess towards the front and hit a peak at 28 years on wards.

These days if you aint part of team programe you are stuffed.

[RichB]

rallycross said:

You can guarantee that when it comes to driver choices, Williams will cock it up. They always seem to do this, and it's only going to get worse as they have no money and only poor results. Rubens should have told them where to go a few months ago when they said they wouldn't give him an answer.

More to the point Rubens should have told them he was retiring a few months ago when they wouldn't give him an answer.

[amokwa]

Henry Fiddleton said:

2013 it will be game over. Neman Haas have called it a day for this year!

Sad to hear this news, they gave us some great races over there, will be missed as much as Paul Newman and Carl's unlit cigars.

[Allyc85]

spunkytherabbit said:

Maldonado, the Pedro Diniz of his generation.

Edited by spunkytherabbit on Friday 2nd December 09:58

While im not a huge fan of his, he did manage to get Williams worst ever car into q3 which was quite an achievement IMO.