Vandoorne wants ‘normal’ car back after McLaren struggles
Stoffel Vandoorne has vented his frustrations at ‘a very strange race’ which involved a mid-German GP stop with an engine issue before returning to the action to fight up the order.
For the past couple of races Vandoorne has been remarkably off the pace for McLaren struggling to find a comfortable set-up for grip and confidence with his MCL33.
Stoffel Vandoorne has vented his frustrations at ‘a very strange race’ which involved a mid-German GP stop with an engine issue before returning to the action to fight up the order.
For the past couple of races Vandoorne has been remarkably off the pace for McLaren struggling to find a comfortable set-up for grip and confidence with his MCL33.
McLaren has undergone a range of changes to its 2018 F1 car having established data from wind tunnel testing has not translated into on-track performance gains with the team particularly struggling for outright speed in qualifying.
Vandoorne, who has suffered more than teammate Fernando Alonso with the ongoing issues, qualified last at Hockenheim and his troubles continued during his opening stint of the German GP running off the pace and his race looked set to be over as he pitted with an engine issue.
But after quick work from his McLaren squad the Belgian driver returned to action and coupled with the right tyre call in the rain he climbed up the order to finish in 13th. Despite an encouraging finish, Vandoorne has called on his team to find solutions to his set-up woes for the Hungarian GP.
“The most important thing now is changing things around on my car and arriving in Hungary with a normal car,” Vandoorne said. “It was a very strange race. We had a terrible first part, when we were almost last – as we’ve been most of this weekend, to be honest.
“Then we had an engine issue; we thought we had to retire the car but then we found some settings to make it work again, even though with a little lower power than normal, but at least it got ourselves back in the race.
“When the rain came down we took the right decision by not pitting for Intermediate tyres, which got ourselves up a few positions. Thirteenth was probably the best position we could’ve gained.”
Vandoorne'a run without points has now stretched to seven races having had a positive start to 2018 with three finishes inside the points from the opening four rounds.
