A planned 'hero's homecoming' Formula 1 street demo for Williams driver Pastor Maldonado in the Venezuelan capital Caracas was cut short on Sunday when he spun and damaged the car on only his second lap.

Maldonado, visiting his home country for the first time since becoming Venezuela's first grand prix winner, was due to complete a 12-lap run on the Fuerte Tiunas military parade ground in front of 20,000 fans and numerous political and military VIPs, with team owner Sir Frank Williams and shareholder Toto Wolff also present.

But Maldonado was caught out by the extremely bumpy surface of the show ground and spun his Williams FW33, damaging its suspension on the roadside kerbing.

The run had been planned as the highlight of a day of national sporting celebration, during which Venezuela's top sportsmen, including Olympic gold-medal winning fencer Ruben Limardo and IndyCar racer EJ Viso, were paraded before the assembled crowd.

However, fellow PDVSA-backed driver Rodolfo Gonzalez saved the situation by performing an eight-lap demonstration run in his GP2 car.

A violent electrical storm shortly after Gonzalez completed his demo ended thoughts of repairing Maldonado's car to resume running.

He vowed to convert his prodigious pace into more top 10 finishes in the second half of the year.

"There are still nine races to go, which is quite a lot, so we have time to recover," the Venezuelan told AUTOSPORT. "I will do my best in the second half of the season to recover the loss and will never back off.

"We need more points and we need to improve and learn from the mistakes. Every time I go on track, I try to learn and constantly improve. That is my approach.

"For [various] reasons, we didn't get any points after Barcelona. But this is racing. Qualifying has been good."

Maldonado has been the subject of criticism this season. He has been punished by race stewards three times in the last four races for clashes with Lewis Hamilton (Valencia), Sergio Perez (Silverstone) and Paul di Resta (Hungaroring) but insists that he isn't being distracted by such comments.

He emphasises that he has not let his focus waver in the face of criticism, or after the praise that he deservedly received after his win in Spain.

"I was not looking for [good] comments from people on that," he said of how that win changed the way he was perceived. I had full focus on my job trying to push the team forward.

"When you do well, you have everyone on your back in a good way and when you do badly you have everyone on your back in a bad way."