Has Lotus Formula One driver Pastor Maldonado crashed today? Yes. Maldonado ate it outside Turn 4 in testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya today. Thankfully, Maldonado is okay, however, his personal crash counter had to be reset.
Maldonado was having a good, quick run where he claimed to be gaining confidence in the new 2015 car, eying a top ten time for the practice day. Per BBC Sport, Lotus was working on race pace for this practice session. According to the Venezuelan driver, the Mercedes PU106B Hybrid power unit was easier to drive than the team's previous Renault one.
"When you are more confident in the car you can push harder," he told Crash.net. "The car feels more compact with a very good balance and still something we can work around. It has been easier to get more mileage and therefore try more aerodynamic things which is very positive."
Looks like he got too confident. Poor Pastor.
Hey, look! Lotus has a cheese grater, too.
According to BBC Sport, Lotus isn't packing up their gear, so it looks like they will attempt to repair the car and send Maldonado out for more laps before the end of the day.
UPDATE: Although Maldonado's crash counter initially labelled the reason for the crash as "Maldonaderp," Lotus said that a brake failure was to blame, per F1 journalist Adam Cooper. This is why there are preseason tests: to find these bugs out.