Photo : Mark Thompson ( Getty )

Man oh man, have I missed Pastor Maldonado. The former Formula One driver has just casually mentioned this week that he totally expected to sign a deal to race with Ferrari for the 2014 season , prompting the entire world of racing to sit back and ask, “hahahaha—wait, what???”


Yes. In a recent edition of F1’s Beyond The Grid podcast, Maldonado had some extremely incredibly hilariously strong opinions about all the possible routes his career should have taken.

The whole episode is truly absurd. At one point, Maldonado likens himself to the Max Verstappen or Robert Kubica of his day. That is a very strong claim for a driver who won exactly one race and was far more noted for his spectacular crashes than his spectacular drives.


But, apparently, his purported skill had him in very close talks with Ferrari, a team with whom he “expecting” to sign with for 2014. The only problem was, Stefano Domenicali left as team boss , followed by president Luca di Montezemelo .

Here’s more:

At some point we got very close to Ferrari. I was expecting the move at the time. That was my time. It was the moment to have a second chance, not to fight to try to show [my ability] every day, because it was impossible. We lost the contacts and the communication and we focused on [elsewhere]. I’ve never been to Maranello but we had a few meetings at the track. I met Domenicali a few times and I met also di Montezemolo.

He also mentions that he thinks his Williams team tampered with his car to sabotage it ahead of the 2013 United States Grand Prix. Very bad luck.

As you can probably expect, the Ferrari claim sounds... very absurd. This rumor didn’t really exist at the time, and this is the first most folks are hearing about it now. And it’s brought plenty of speculation about how much better everyone else’s lives should have been, if only:




Please share your big Pastor Maldonado-inspired almost-real dreams with us in the comments.