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Stoffel Vandoorne will get to experience his first home Grand Prix this weekend, as Formula 1 returns from its summer break and heads to Belgium. The 25-year-old McLaren-Honda driver is excited to race in front of his home fans, something he has been waiting for since he was very young.
"I’ve been looking forward to driving in my first Belgian Grand Prix as a Formula 1 driver for so long," he admitted. "It’s exciting for any driver at their home Grand Prix because it’s always a special weekend. It’ll be great to have the backing of my home crowd, and there’ll be a lot of fans out there, as well as family and friends coming to support."
Vandoorne has had a tough season so far, having to cope with the struggles of McLaren-Honda. The team is expected to endure a difficult this weekend, but Vandoorne says that he is happy to be returning to the car now that he is fully recharged after the break.
"After a busy first half of the year you always look forward to a holiday, but after a few days I already wanted to be back in the car! But it’s been good to have a bit of a break, reflect on what’s happened in the last few months, analyse the good things and the bad things, train hard and then come back even stronger in Spa for the second half of the season."
At the start of the year, it seems Honda had taken a turn for the worst as its engine was more unreliable than ever and its speed was lacking in drastic fashion. After a number of tough events, Vandoorne thinks that everything is much neater and feels the team is starting to make progress.
"The start of the season has definitely been challenging – not only from my side but for the team as a whole," he said. "We’ve suffered a few problems which have hampered our running, and I think maybe from my side it took a bit more time to really understand what I needed from the car because of those problems.
"However, more recently we’ve been seeing the results of a lot of hard work I’ve been putting in with the engineers and with the team back at the factory. Everything we’ve been working on has been a good step, and from that we’ve seen positive progress. The margin for improvement is still significant and there’s more good things to come, so I’m hopeful the next few races will be promising for us."
Fergal Walsh
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