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Stoffel Vandoorne didn't enjoy a particularly successful day for McLaren, as the Belgian finished in P13, or in a more dismal way of putting it, last place.
Vandoorne made an early pit-stop in the race as he was having power issues, and didn't have any display on his dash. A reboot of the car sent him back on his way, but cost him a lot of time.
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"I had a very tricky race. At my pit-stop, I had to perform a full power-cycle of the car to reset it, which cost me time and position, and I also lost the dashboard readout for a while. Throughout the race, I was very busy on the steering wheel, making a lot of changes to the car’s settings while trying to bring the car home."
He is reasonably happy with the performance of the car, as things appeared to be looking at their worst during pre-season when the car broke down multiple times.
"Nevertheless, after the tests in Barcelona, we didn’t really expect to finish the race, so this is a little bit of a milestone today. We definitely don’t have enough pace to compete with the cars ahead of us, so we need an extra big push for China, in a fortnight’s time."
Today was also the 25-year-old's birthday and he comes away from the weekend with a couple of positives, looking through his own car and the car of teammate Fernando Alonso.
"We’ve had decent mileage all weekend; Fernando showed well in qualifying; and we finished the race, so there are positives to take away from this first weekend of the season. I think I probably deserve a slice of birthday cake this evening!"
Fergal Walsh
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
C. Sainz jr
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Replies (2)
Login to replyf1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
Atleast he finished...
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
On the bright side, the PUs lasted the entire distance. On a less positive note it appears to be significantly lacking in power even when compared to Renault's PU. Honda need to work fast now, 2 months wont cut it.