Pastor Rafael Maldonado Motta (born March 10, 1985 in Maracay, Venezuela) is a Venezuelan Formula One driver currently with the Williams team. Before making his Formula One debut in 2011, he won the 2010 GP2 championship. He became the first Venezuelan to win a Formula One Grand Prix when he won the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix from his first pole position.

Maldonado began the 2012 season alongside fellow South American racer, Bruno Senna, for Williams. He started the season with promising pace, qualifying eighth for the Australian Grand Prix. In the race, he was running strongly until he crashed out on the final lap, fighting with Fernando Alonso for fifth position. In the Malaysian Grand Prix, Maldonado retired in the closing stages of the race while running in the points. He scored his first points of the season by finishing eighth in China. A puncture ended his race in Bahrain, after he qualified in seventeenth position. At the Spanish Grand Prix, Maldonado qualified second, next to Lewis Hamilton on the front row of the grid after strong pace from his Williams car during the race weekend. Maldonado was later promoted to his first pole position in his Formula One career after Hamilton was excluded from the results of qualifying, due to having insufficient fuel in his car. Maldonado was beaten to the first corner by Fernando Alonso, but regained the lead after the second round of pit stops. Maldonado held his lead after the third pit-stop phase, and held off Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen to win, becoming the first Venezuelan driver to finish on a Grand Prix podium in the process. During post-race celebrations, a fire engulfed the Williams pit, and Maldonado was seen carrying his cousin to safety.

At Monaco, he received a ten-place grid penalty for causing an avoidable collision with Sergio Pérez during a practice session (which subsequently may have led to Pérez's crash in qualifying, which caused the session to be red-flagged) and an additional five-place penalty for a gearbox change, meaning he started twenty-fourth and last on the grid. He retired due to an accident at the start of the race, when he ran into the back of Pedro de la Rosa's HRT who also retired with rear wing damage. At the end of second qualifying session in Canada, Maldonado crashed into the infamous Wall of Champions at the end of the lap in which he a set the quickest sector 1 time and was on course to bump Jenson Button out of Q3. Maldonado finished the qualifying session seventeenth and started the race from twenty second position after a five-place grid penalty after he was forced to change his gearbox due to damage suffered in the crash.[1] Maldonado made good progress in the first stint, running as high as tenth mid-race, however after his pitstop he dropped back to seventeenth and finished the race in fourteenth.

Maldonado crashes his car at the 2012 Monaco Grand PrixIn Europe, Maldonado qualified third but dropped to fifth after the start and tenth after pitting under a safety car halfway through the race. Maldonado then passed several drivers including Red Bull's Mark Webber and was running fourth in the closing stages of the race. On lap 56 (the penultimate lap of the race), Maldonado was battling with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton for third place, however Hamilton forced Maldonado off the track at turn 12 and Maldonado returned to track and collided with Hamilton in turn 13, with Maldonado losing steering on the high curbs. Maldonado was able to continue and finished tenth with a broken front wing; Hamilton retired after he crashed into the tyre wall. Maldonado blamed Hamilton for the incident, however the stewards gave Maldonado a 20-second time penalty which dropped Maldonado out of the points to twelfth position. Maldonado qualified seventh in the British Grand Prix and ran as high as sixth before a pit-stop on lap 11 which dropped him into the midfield. Maldonado was subsequently involved in a collision with Sergio Pérez, which dropped him to last while Pérez retired on the spot. Maldonado eventually finished sixteenth, a lap down on winner Mark Webber. In television interviews, Pérez was damning of Maldonado's driving, calling him too dangerous and claiming he ruined other people's races. Pérez also called for the stewards to take tough action against Maldonado. Maldonado said the collision was a racing incident. The stewards penalised Maldonado by a reprimand and a fine of €10,000 with two penalties given due to the "serious nature" of the incident.