Stoffel Vandoorne will continue to drive for McLaren Formula 1 team for 2018, the British team has confirmed.
Vandoorne had signed a multi-year deal but there were doubts about his continued stay in the group for a while now. With the confirmation from the team, Vandoorne can sigh a breath of relief.
Talking about the confirmation Vandoorne said, “I’m delighted that the team has now formally announced that I will continue to race for them next year, because I’ll be able to approach the second half of my rookie season with total focus on the job in hand: namely getting the very most I can out of my car, my engineers, and everything and everyone around me,”
The Belgian driver was the 2015 champion in GP2 and joined the McLaren junior program in 2013 and has been with the team since then.
He debuted in Grand prix in 2016 replacing Fernando Alonso in the Bahrain Grand Prix and scored his first F1 points, landing in the 10th spot.
In 2017, Vandoorne was promoted to the full-time racing seat to replace Jenson Button and has been driving alongside Alonso ever since the beginning of the season.
McLaren’s racing director Eric Boullier said, “When we announced at the end of 2016 that Stoffel would be a McLaren Honda race driver for 2017, we indicated that our plan was that he’d race for us for a number of years,”
“That plan hasn’t changed, and I’m very happy therefore to be able to confirm that he’ll continue to race for us next season.
“Like all rookies, he’s had to learn a lot in the first half of his first Formula 1 season, but we have great confidence in him, and he’s getting better and better all the time.
“His teammate is a tough opponent – that’s an understatement in fact because he’s arguably the best driver in the sport today – but Stoffel’s robust talent and fierce ambition make us sure that he’ll achieve great successes with us in the future.”
2017 has been a difficult season for Vandoorne with the larger than life shadow of Alonso over him. He managed to score one point in the 2017 racing season versus 10 scored by Alonso
