His relationship with Williams deteriorating by the hour, Pastor Maldonado has accused the team of sabotaging his efforts.

Having begun the Austin weekend by saying he was "glad" to be leaving Williams, his seat with the Grove outfit having gone to Felipe Massa while his PDVSA money seemingly heads to Lotus, the Venezuelan has had an attitude ever since.

Failing to make it into Q2, while his rookie teammate Valtteri Bottas, qualified ninth, Maldonado suggested that his efforts were deliberately thwarted by the team.

"I never got 100%, I think in my car somebody is playing with the pressure and the temperatures on my car," he told Sky F1 after the session. "You need to ask the team, the guys working on the car. It is quite clear what’s going on. It is a question for them.

"But just one more race to go, so great," he added, much to the obvious embarrassment of the Williams PR man overseeing the interview.

In a further interview shortly after he had calmed down a little, but was still far from happy. Asked whether he really felt his car was being tampered with, he replied: “Maybe, maybe not but I’ve never felt something like that. I know very well how the car is; from the beginning of the season it was quite tough for us but I’ve never felt something like that.

“The car is nowhere, the car is undriveable and it’s very clear on the on-boards and the data where and when I’m suffering on the track. The car was turning more to one side than the other.”

Claire Williams was quick to deny the Venezuelan's claims. "It's a big adrenaline rush for drivers, isn't it?" she said. "People say things after these kind of situations and we'll go back and talk to the engineers and see what happened. But never in Williams, in our experience and our history, would we ever do anything like that."

Asked if the relationship with Maldonado has broken down, she said: "When we are behind closed doors, it's not acrimonious. There's not that kind of atmosphere within the team.

"Pastor has said he wants to go to another team and that's completely fine," she added. "Drivers do that. This is Formula One, it's the nature of our business."

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