Stoffel Vandoorne talks about his difficult day on track with only 40 laps completed with the McLaren-Honda in Barcelona.


The Belgian is no stranger to F1 after competing in the Bahrein Grand Prix last year. Yet, today was his first day as an official driver for McLaren-Honda. Despite having faced an engine failure in the morning, Vandoorne remains positive about the car.

“It was a good first feeling for me, immediately I felt confident in the car and very comfortable so I think that’s the first very positive sign when you jump into a new car with new regulations and you feel confident immediately.”

The 2015 GP2 champion, however, doesn’t hide his frustration following the lack of running time and mileage the team gathered during those two first days (100 laps less than Haas F1 Team).

“I think everybody is keeping their head down. This is only the second day of testing, this isn’t the start that we hoped we would have. Obviously we wanted to do more laps yesterday and do more laps today. We are a professional team, we are working very hard to sort the issues we had yesterday and today. There are still six days left, which is not a huge amount, so we need to make the most of every lap we get on track and at the moment the team is working hard to sort the issues and make sure we have better days.”

Vandoorne also talked about his relationship with Fernando Alonso, infamous for being a tough teammate. The Belgian again remained very positive about teaming-up with the double world champion:

“Myself and Fernando we have a very good relationship, I’ve been working with him in the past years so I think we are pushing both very hard to bring McLaren-Honda to the top and it’s important we work together this year to make the most out of the car, out of the chassis, out of the engine as well so we are doing our best and hopefully we can bring the team forward.”

Vandoorne said the origin of his problem was still unknown and impossible to relate with Alonso’s one the day before. The Spaniard will be behind the wheel tomorrow and Vandoorne will end the day.