F1: Top 10 One-Off Podium

#1 Pastor Maldonado

Pastor Maldonado being lifted by Alonso and Raikkonen after his first podium finish.

Lewis Hamilton was the one to initially qualify to the pole but due to a technical infringement, Williams' Pastor Maldonado inherited the pole and went on to win the race. Before this race, his previous best was just an 8th place. The race is undoubtedly the best one for Maldanodo as he went on to win the race as the first Venezuelan and it happened to be his first and last finish at the podium.

At the final phase of the race, Alonso eventually caught the back of Maldonado but did not have the ability to overtake him. The gap hovered around one second for some time until Alonso started dropping off.

The Venezuelan was competing in Formula One for 5 seasons, 2011-13 for Williams and 2014-15 with the Lotus. Maldonado was set to race for the reformed Renault team (who bought out Lotus) in 2016 alongside Jolyon Palmer, but it was announced on 1 February 2016 that he would not be returning.

Maldonado later became a test driver for Pirelli, testing a GP2 car for the 2017 season. Interesting fact about Maldonado is that he was amassing quite a lot of reprimands, 4 penalty points in 2014, 5 driver related reprimands in 2013 and 5 penalty points in 2012.