Pastor Maldonado has been announced as racing for Williams next season. This was widely expected, so the news needs another angle. There have been two favourites: that he’s Venezuelan, and the last time there was a Venezuelan in Formula 1, Maldonado wasn’t born; and that he brings a lot of sponsorship money with him. But that’s not what I’m interested in.

Maldonado is the 2010 GP2 Series champion, and that will have gone some way to securing him the Williams seat for 2011. There is a strong history of GP2 champions moving to Formula 1 the following year:

• 2005 – Nico Rosberg – Williams in 2006
• 2006 – Lewis Hamilton – McLaren in 2007
• 2007 – Timo Glock – Toyota in 2008
• 2009 – Nico Hulkenberg – Williams in 2010

But there’s a year missing from that list: 2008. And that’s why I want you to spare a thought for Giorgio Pantano. With Maldonado’s move confirmed, Pantano remains the only GP2 champion, in its six season history, not to get a drive in Formula 1 the following year. Poor bloke.

Why didn’t Pantano get his chance? It’s tempting to suggest that it’s because he’d already had a crack at the F1 whip, at Jordan in 2004. But the same can be said of Glock. Literally the same: he too drove for Jordan in 2004, before his time in GP2. In fact, Glock replaced Pantano in the team. Small world.

It’s not a fact lost on Pantano, and I’m pleased to have found the very honest, quite angry comments he made about in 2008, which I think were originally to autosport.com:

“I challenge anyone to have a CV as good as mine. I won two karting world titles, three European, three Italian, German F3, GP2 and was always at the front in F3000. But now I don’t have a seat in F1, is this a joke? That’s what it’s like now, if you don’t get in touch with people, no one looks for you. I feel abandoned. The only person behaving fairly has been Ecclestone. I called him a few days ago and after ten minutes he called me back. The only real drives still available are at Honda and Toro Rosso. Bernie told me that if anything moves, I’ll be the first to know. But I feel total indifference towards me. I read of Senna and Buemi but, really, what have they done? At this point, a guy in my situation must think that being a racing driver is not advantageous, doing another job would be better. Money is becoming the priority in order to race, talent doesn’t exist any more. I think I could still do six or seven years in F1 at high levels.”

Pantano can perhaps take comfort in the knowledge that there is a Facebook group also being angry on his behalf. Though it’s a bit quiet now.

Since taking the GP2 title, Pantano has been keeping himself busy with alternative – for want of a better word – international single-seater series: Superleague Formula in 2009, where he finished 7th for AC Milan; and AutoGP in 2010, finishing 11th.

We await details of Pantano’s plans for 2011. Formula 1 is looking unlikely…