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Vandoorne left searching for answers as F1 future hangs by a thread

20:15, 25 Aug 2018

byJake Williams-Smith

Stoffel Vandoorne had the ignominy of qualifying in last for his home grand prix at Spa-Francorchamps. The McLaren driver struggled to find any answers for his lack of pace and could only manage P20 in Belgium on Saturday.

On a weekend in which he needed a really strong performance, Vandoorne will be hoping that his race goes in the opposite fashion to how his qualifying ended, admitting afterwards that the team had been expecting to be near the back of the pack at this circuit.

“Our general performance explains pretty much everything this afternoon. We’ve been last in almost every session, we’ve had so many problems this weekend and I don’t think there were any surprises here in qualifying," he said in his post-qualifying debrief.

“It’s my home grand prix and it’s a real shame that we don’t have better machinery to really put on a good show and give the fans a good result.

“I don’t think there would have been a huge miracle if I hadn’t had the incident in FP3. We tried to play every card today, with a bit of slipstreaming as well and we didn’t really progress any further, so I don’t think it made much difference for me.

“I hope I can progress at least a little bit tomorrow. It’s been a difficult weekend, we’ve not really had any performance at all, and I just hope tomorrow will be better.”

McLaren have reportedly been looking at Esteban Ocon to replace the Belgian driver before the season is over, the Frenchman's future looking more and more in doubt by the day at the new Racing Point Force India team. Should McLaren make the move, it is hard to see where Vandoorne would end up but a possible lifeline could be on the horizon at Sauber.