Stoffel Vandoorne’s arrival in Formula 1 was never in question after stamping his authority on many junior categories, culminating in a dominant GP2 title win in 2015.
After deputising for Fernando Alonso at the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix, and impressing by out-qualifying team mate Jenson Button and finishing in the points, he was duly ushered into a full-time F1 seat the following year.
But just as he burst onto the scene, the team’s form nosedived in what proved to be its final year with struggling engine supplier Honda. Vandoorne failed to pick up a single point until round 11 in Hungary and finished the season with a points tally of 13, just four off his team mate, a lowly 16th in the drivers’ standings.
Matters improved somewhat in 2018. Vandoorne started strongly, taking points in three of the four opening races, including an impressive recovery drive in Bahrain to eighth after wheelspin at the start dropped him to last place. But what is more often remembered about his final year in F1 is that Alonso out-qualified him every time.
Amid a change of management at McLaren, Vandoorne was swept aside. He followed a well-worn path of ex-F1 drivers before him, moving over to Formula E. However he made an undoubted success of his spell at Mercedes short-lived team, while keeping his hand in F1 as their reserve driver.
Having finished runner-up in his second season in 2019-20, Vandoorne clinched the Formula E world championship last year. However Mercedes chose to exit, selling up to McLaren, and Vandoorne also decided to move on. He’s joined the Penske team which struggled last year, but has now teamed up with the DS brand, a major force in the series previously with Techeetah.
But having achieved so much success elsewhere, and seen his team mate of the last three seasons, Nyck de Vries, land an F1 seat at AlphaTauri, does Vandoorne still regard that series as unfinished business?
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“My main focus is Formula E because that’s where I’m racing and where I can prove myself on track,” he told RaceFans ahead of this weekend’s Diriyah EPrix. “So that’s obviously the most important thing and that’s what most people are always looking at, the last race that you’ve been [competing] at, but Formula 1 is Formula 1.
“It’s obviously a huge sport and a huge business, and it’s grown massively over the last…
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