Picture via McLaren Media Centre

F1 News

Vandoorne confident of better shape in Germany

Vandoorne confident of better shape in Germany

10-07-2018 14:20
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It’s now six races without points for Stoffel Vandoorne after his frustratingly close 11th place in Britain last weekend.

Everyone at McLaren has endured a turbulent week since Eric Boullier resigned midway through F1’s first ever triple header after results had gone downhill, followed by the team’s home race at Silverstone.

Vandoorne’s team mate Fernando Alonso cranked up the pressure on the Belgian by recording a second consecutive eighth place, giving the Spaniard 40 points compared to Vandoorne’s measly tally of just eight, less than plenty of drivers in worse cars.

It has been common knowledge all season that McLaren have struggled to produce good pace in qualifying, and Vandoorne showed that as he qualified 17th at Silverstone, faster than only Sergey Sirotkin, with Lance Stroll and Brendon Hartley not setting lap times.

Vandoorne concedes that the weekend was “very tough” for himself: “It was a very tough race for us, difficult to close up the gap with some of the competitors in front, and disappointing not to come home with points.

“From the start, I had the same feeling in the car as yesterday, so the conditions out there were really tricky.”

Vandoorne did have some positive news however, saying that he was able to keep pace with some supposedly faster cars.

He said: “We were able to stay with some of the points-scoring cars like the Force India and the Renault and were more or less matching their pace.

“It’s been a tough triple-header, everyone is a bit tired at the end of these three races, so the mechanics deserve a good break.

“I’m sure they’ll check over everything and we’ll turn up in better shape in Germany.”