The troubles at McLaren is well known as it suffers mostly on Saturdays than Sunday as described by Fernando Alonso, but Stoffel Vandoorne is amid a nightmarish run in the same spec car causing alarm bells to ring within the team.
The Belgian was dead last in the 2018 Formula 1 German Grand Prix qualifying, some 3.189s behind pole-sitter Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, as even the equally struggling Williams car was able to beat him in the session.
Not just Vandoorne but the whole team including Alonso is puzzled by the lack of performance despite both the cars being the same effectively. It has affected the youngster’s run as he is yet to find that form he had shown in the junior championships.
But he is confident still, adding that he hasn’t forgotten how to drive. “The situation today was the same as at Silverstone,” he said. “Since we hit the ground there we were the last car by some margin, and it’s turned out the same today and all weekend so far.
“It’s frustrating as we’ve changed a lot of parts on the car to try and fix the problems, but we haven’t yet managed to find a solution. I definitely haven’t forgotten how to drive. Between me and Fernando the cars are in a similar spec, but we can see some issues on the data on my side.
“The team has put in a lot of effort to change parts already, but it seems like we’re not really moving forward much and the team is looking at various options to see what else we can do. The priority now is to find a solution for the problem we have,” he added.
This is something Alonso would like to be worked at as well as he admits that scoring points with both cars in crucial in the fight against Renault, Haas and Force India – as now even Sauber has picked up its pace.
“I think he’s [Vandoorne] doing all right,” said Alonso. “The car, definitely the last two races, it seems that it has some performance issues and we know that there are clear signs from the data that there is less downforce in that car.
“We are changing some parts between old and new [to check what works]. [But] we need to go deep into that investigation because we need both cars into the points.” Vandoorne’s last point came in Baku, which was six races ago.
In fact, the Belgian has only scored eight points to Alonso’s 40 in the total of 48 for McLaren. Even in that, his best result is only eighth whereas Alonso has had a fifth place finish to go with consistent seventh place finishes.
