Pastor Maldonado blames Lewis Hamilton for the crash that put him out of the Monaco GP shortly after the restart.
Hamilton tried a move up the inside at Ste Devote, which ended in heavy contact that put the Venezuelan into the barrier. Hamilton was given a 20 secs penalty that didn’t affect his sixth position.
“I think he tried on myself exactly the same manoeuvre that he tried on Felipe,” said Maldonado. “Exactly the same. He was too optimistic. I think this is a very narrow track. I think you must be very carefully on the overtaking. I did many overtakings all through the race, and I never had some problems, because I was very convinced to do that.
“For sure he was maybe in some troubles because of his position, he’s fighting for the championship. I think we did a very great job until the crash.
“In order to overtake there you must be side by side, and he wasn’t. You know I think he was too optimistic, because of the conditions of the race, and he was on option tyres. That’s it.”
Asked bythis blog whether he had seen Lewis coming or expected a move, he said: “I was looking for my line you know, and I just feel the crash. No way.”
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
How can drivers lie like that to the press? He turned in very early and it was obvious that he wasn’t looking to make the corner but to make sure Hamilton couldn’t get ahead of him.
Maldonado drove a great race – ‘I did many overtakings’ – not of the ones that mattered tho; all the minor players. Get in behind and learn.
For me Pastor’s incident with Lewis was 50/50. Pastor moved across before the corner and pushed Lewis clean off the track on the inside, so surely he has to take some of the blame. Ridiculous that Lewis penalised for that. We may as well go back to having processional races as it seems overtaking is an unacceptable thing in Formula 1.
Just because some does his patented dive bombing move doesn’t mean your obligated to give up your line into the corner.
It didn’t appear like Maldonado took a normal line into the corner. He turned in several metres too early. If you compare to Lewis’ move on Schumacher into Ste Devote earlier in the race, Lewis was actually further alongside Maldonado than he was with Schumacher, it is just that Schumacher had the experience to turn in later and avoid an incident. It looked like inexperience on the part of Maldonado for me.
Senna used to pull moves like these all the time, leaving it up to the other driver as to whether to turn in and have an accident or not, and people raved about that. Can’t see what the difference is
You seem to think races would be processional without Lewis Hamilton, yet 23 other drivers are able to make overtakes without ending the races of others.
You seem to have made the assumption that every driver can overtake but at most only half the grid have proven they can overtake at this level. Hamilton’s “victims”, Maldonado and Massa, haven’t.
I blame Pastor’s incompetence for the crash. It was almost a carbon (fibre) copy of the overtake on Schumacher – but the class act that is Schumacher left Hamilton a fair amount of room, unlike Pastor.
To penalise Lewis in this instance is to effectively ban overtaking at Monaco. An absolute disgrace.
Class act of Schumacher – Hmmm Hungary’10
Whatever happened to the rule of the thumb – its overtaker’s responsibility to make a clean pass? A rule that had flooded internet after Turkey’10 when everybody defended Webber’s move to turn in for the corner and Vettel to be over ambitious for dive bombing to bully Webber off …..
When they actually touch, Lewis is half a car length behind Pastor and completely off the track over the curbs. He hits Pastor near the back of the sidepod. I’m sorry, there is no way that was a legitimate attempt at a pass. The only way that would work is if Pastor was willing to just hand over the place. perhaps that was what Lewis expected.
I’d like to see the stewards going with a ‘light touch’ approach to these issues (not necessarily this one specifically) because we don’t want overtaking to be discouraged.
Everyone wants overtaking. But lets not get confused here – overtaking is not punting the other guy off the track.
Which also goes for Maldonado, and Massa: they could have avoided it too, if they wanted, but as Maldonado says “I was just doing my job” implying that he doesn’t think it his job to avoid contact, but rather to block at all costs, even if he end up losing his car. Massa too took a different line to block Hamilton, ended up hitting Webber in front of him, then collided a bit with Hamilton, who was (like with Maldonado) far on the curbs too as possible to not collide, but couldn’t move further inward anymore.
So the way I see it, yes, Hamilton was ambitious, but that doesn’t mean that a driver shouldn’t try to be smart and avoid contact, if it means continuing the race – like Hamilton and Schumacher did earlier in the race when they were overtaking each other – and getting some points, instead of a “he did wrong me” defense as the only recourse.
Saint Lewis (Hamilton) never does nothing wrong
What also wasn’t picked up on tv was how many tmes Maldonado changed lines down the straight before Lewis made his move. Not only is that illegal, as Lewis will himself testify from the penalty he got in Malaysia, but it also ruined some of the momentum Hamilton had, preventing him from being better placed on the approach to Ste Devote. I find it unbelievable that the stewards penalised Hamilton here, Maldonado was 100% to blame and should have got a penalty for the next race. No wonder Lewis was so angry with the stewards.