Pastor Maldonado was a happy man after scoring his first point of the season as he finished tenth in Sunday’s Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.

Although the Venezuelan finished ninth in Austin, Texas, he had five seconds added to his race time for speeding in the pit lane as he got off the mark since joining the Enstone-based Lotus outfit at the start of the season, having switched from Will-iams.

His teammate, Romain Grosjean, finished out of the points in 11th, with the race won by Lewis Hamilton.

“It was a great fight from the very beginning; it felt good, the strategy was good and the car pace was surprisingly good. We were fully focused, keeping the pace and managing the tyres,” he said.

“We did lose out in the slow-speed corners, but we were very competitive in the medium and high speed turns.

“That meant we could recover the time lost in the slow ones so we were in the mix.

“Let’s keep pushing like that; I think we can do a good job in the next two races.”

Grosjean added: “The race was really good, I enjoyed it.

“Fighting with JB (Jenson Button) was very, very tight but definitely good fun.

“It was less amusing with Jean-Eric (Vergne) though, he broke my front wing and rear floor which made the car pretty difficult to drive.

“I wasn’t very happy about that as the incident cost me eighth position.

“On the plus side, it’s good to be back in the points with Pastor, it’s just a shame not to have been there too.”