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Stoffel Vandoorne began his first full F1 season with considerable difficulty, mainly thanks to the clear issues provided to McLaren by its Honda power unit. Over the first ten races of the year, the Belgian tried but failed to score a single point, and in seven of the first eight rounds he found himself knocked out after the first stage of qualifying.
The British Grand Prix marked a change in Vandoorne's fortunes, however, as he managed to outqualify team-mate Fernando Alonso for the first time - and things got better at the Hungaroring as he finally scored with a tenth-place finish. This was attributed by his boss Eric Boullier to "a lot of dedicated hard work", but Vandoorne himself believes that his growing F1 experience is also playing a valuable part.
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"With the experience I have now, I'm much more able to direct the way I want to go," he said. "I think the last few races have been very good from a performance point of view, matching Fernando on pace as well, which has been positive. Every weekend I'm still making big steps forward and I'm pushing very hard with the team to get things in my way, let's say, trying to get the car to suit my style a little bit more.
"Also from my point of view in terms of managing practice sessions, managing a whole race weekend through qualifying and then the race is definitely going in a good direction."
Vandoorne undoubtedly believes that mechanical problems have hampered his adjustment to the MCL32, but he also says that recent work by the team has been encouraging and suggestive of gains to come. "Lately we have had good runs, we have been putting in a lot of work with the engineers, with the team back at the factory, and everything we have done from now has been a very good step.
"It has been good progress during that first part. I think that the margin to improve is still big; there are a lot of things to come, so that is looking promising for the next races."
Mason Hawker
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
C. Sainz jr
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