Stoffel Vandoorne says he endured his worst Friday running for a long time after finishing last in both practice sessions at the Hockenheimring.
The McLaren driver says the team still hasn’t got to the bottom of the handling problem he experienced with his car during the British Grand Prix weekend.
“It’s probably been my worst Friday for a long time,” Vandoorne told media at the Hockenheimring.
“[It’s] a really similar feeling [to] Silverstone. Something isn’t working on the car. We can see the car is not in its normal condition.“At the moment it’s really a question mark for us to put the car back to a position where it works normally and then see where we are on Saturday.”
McLaren has been running test programmes during Fridays at race weekends to solve an aerodynamic problem with the MCL33. Vandoorne said that makes it difficult to judge how much progress they are making.
“It’s hard to tell because we were a little bit speed limited this morning in FP1,” he said. “Limited mileage, not really learning for myself and really doing the learning for the team.
“Hopefully for them it’s been beneficial today to understand for the future,” he added.
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Neil (@neilosjames)
20th July 2018, 22:27
I guess making their car work for Fernando’s assistant isn’t very high on McLaren’s list of priorities at the moment…
Mike
20th July 2018, 23:14
Evidently making Fernando’s car work isn’t high on the list either – he was 17th fastest (slowest) today. This idea that McLaren is trying to screw VAN is silly – they are simply lost and grasping for straws at this point. They are trying different parts on both cars because the simulator is useless – similar to Ferrari in the 2010-2014 years.
If anything, VAN’s misfortunes will assure he will be back next year because McLaren know he is very talented and they have failed him. The same cannot be said for some of those in the engineering and design departments and more heads will roll sooner than later and rightfully so.
VAN is suffering the same fate Alonso has for the last 4 years – a car that is incapable of being competitive to put it mildly. The only option is to stay and continue to experience the frustration, catch on with another team or walk. In VAN’s case, he would be a fool to leave without a better option. How Alonso has stayed, even considering the money he makes, is beyond me.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
21st July 2018, 9:10
The worrying thing is that it took 2.5 years between when Ferrari decided to fix the simulator and when the first car was produced that showed it actually was fixed. There were initial calibration issues as well as the cost of initial construction.
Todfod (@todfod)
21st July 2018, 7:18
Just when you think things can’t get worse for McLaren…
They’ve gone from the 6th quickest team at the start of the season to the 8th/9th quickest by mid season. I have an awful feeling they will be battling the Williams for the rest of the season.