Pastor Maldonado is coming to the end of his rookie year in Formula One, and is still struggling to make a strong impression at the Williams team. However, so far this weekend, at the inaugural Indian Grand Prix, he's gradually matching and overtaking his teammate.

Rubens Barrichello finished FP1 15th, two places ahead of Pastor. In the second practice, he finished 15th again, but Pastor closed up to 16th. By the time Saturday rolled around, Pastor was ahead, finishing 17th to Rubens' 18th, and in qualifying, he extended the lead to two positions. His finish ahead of Rubens brings their season long battle to 9-8, in the veteran's favour.

After qualifying today, Maldonado said: "The track was getting better and better every lap today so you really needed to be on track at the right time. My engineers achieved that with our qualifying strategy and the set-up we had worked. We had good race pace in the last few events, and we are close to the top ten, so tomorrow we will fight!"