Pastor Maldonado's was at the centre of another incident on Friday © Getty Images Enlarge

Pastor Maldonado admitted he was "a little optimistic" on his exit from the track after putting his Lotus in the pit lane entrance wall during FP2.

Maldonado comes into this race with a five-place grid penalty and three penalty points on his licence after causing Esteban Gutierrez's crash in Bahrain, and did little to show he has moved on from those incidents on Friday. Maldonado admitted he hit the brakes too late on his entry to the pits and was happy to take responsibility for the accident.

"The incident this afternoon was a mistake from my side," Maldonado said. "I was a little optimistic on the entry to the pits, and the run off is quite short, but that's how it is. It's a tricky part of the track and we've seen incidents there before."

He added that it was "a test" of how to approach the pit entry in future this weekend. After the crash, Maldonado rather sheepishly radioed to the pit wall saying simply: "I crashed, sorry."

There was also an incident in FP1, where Maldonado spun off the track while he was adjusting buttons his steering wheel. Maldonado admitted he simply had "too much to do" on his outlap and simply took his eyes off the road, but seemed reluctant to dwell on either incident.

He was more focused on what had been a positive session on the road, and said there was plenty to suggest Lotus has taken a good step forward.

"In FP2 I made a mistake on the entry to the pits before my long run so we couldn't put everything together. The car is better than the previous race and I hope to have a better qualy. I expect it to be slightly better but I don't know how much. All is starting to work more together. It's very easy to improve when you put things together.

"That means our guys understand more or less after having a total weekend normally, and Renault is improving a lot as well so it is quite positive. We will see tomorrow. We are optimistic as we have been putting everything at the right point."

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