Picture via McLaren Media Centre

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Vandoorne pleased with Hungary improvements

Vandoorne pleased with Hungary improvements

31-07-2018 17:30

Stoffel Vandoorne may have retired from the Hungarian Grand Prix, but he showed potential that his form could be changing for the better after a barren run in Formula One.

The McLaren driver finished in the points three times in the first four races but has failed to score since, leaving him 16th in the drivers’ standings on eight points.

However, things seemed to be turning at the Hungaroring, where despite a poor qualifying performance that saw him knocked out in Q1, the Belgian driver showed very good pace in the race, almost matching his more experienced team mate, two-time world champion Fernando Alonso.

Vandoorne’s seat has been under scrutinization recently in the media, with talk of the talented 26-year old being dropped by McLaren for current F2 star Lando Norris.

Hopefully for Vandoorne, the pace he showed behind the Iron Curtain will keep those rumours at bay for the time being.

He believes that everything is back to normal after his horrid run of form, as he was able to work with the car much better than in previous rounds.

"This weekend was a good sign that everything is back to normal," Vandoorne said. "From a personal side it felt good. We showed the pace was back to where it's been.

"It's very disappointing to finish the race like that. We had a superb start. We were a bit further down the grid than we wanted, but we had a good opening lap, got ourselves into the points.

We had really good tyre management, very good pace when it counted. We managed to go long and do the overcut. We managed to jump a lot of cars during the pit window. A great strategy from the team.

"On a personal note, I can be happy. It's just a shame we couldn't finish it off with double points scoring. It definitely hurts not to finish with points."