Four years after hitting the lowest of lows for any racing driver in single-seater motorsport, this weekend could – and in all likeliness should – see Belgian driver Stoffel Vandoorne grasp the biggest achievement of his career. That’s if, it should be said, winning Formula E ranks higher than competing for two years in Formula One at McLaren, ahead of the FE double-header finale starting tomorrow in Seoul.
Reflecting on a period of turmoil and upheaval at McLaren, Vandoorne was catapulted into a team suddenly unable to compete regularly for points, and acknowledges that it was simply “wrong time, wrong place” during that 2017-2018 period. In fact, having finished in the points during his debut as a test driver in Bahrain in 2016, the anticipated upward trajectory didn’t materialise. His best result was two seventh-place finishes in a row, in Singapore and Malaysia in 2017.
“I was always used to winning and fighting for victories – then I came into Formula One at the worst possible time,” 2015 GP2 winner Vandoorne tells The Independent. “Where the car and team was at the time… suddenly I was in a wrong dynamic where even getting a top-10 finish was extremely difficult to achieve.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 12, 2022-Ausgabe von The Independent.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 12, 2022-Ausgabe von The Independent.
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