McLaren announced that they will be bringing back Stoffel Vandoorne for his second full season in Formula One with the team in the 2018 season.
Stoffel Vandoorne, 25, will be returning as the full-time driver of the #2 McLaren Honda in the 2018 Formula One season. He is currently in his first full-time season with the team and in the sport.
Last season, Vandoorne drove in just one race for McLaren. He drove at Bahrain and finished in 10th place, which to this day is tied for his career-high finish as one of only two top 10 finishes in 11 career races.
So far this season, Vandoorne has driven in 10 of the 11 races on the schedule, as he did not start at Bahrain, which was ironically the site of his first career and lone start last season. In the 10 races, he has had three retirements at China, Spain and Monaco.
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In the seven races he has finished this season, Vandoorne’s best finish is 10th place, which took place at the most recent race at Hungary. The finish tied his career-high result from his first career Formula One race last season at Bahrain. All of his other finishes were between 11th and 14th place, and he currently sits in 18th place in the championship standings.
Vandoorne was optimistic about returning to the team next season.
"“I’m delighted that the team has now formally announced that I will continue to race for them next year, because I’ll be able to approach the second half of my rookie season with total focus on the job in hand: namely getting the very most I can out of my car, my engineers, and everything and everyone around me.”"
With the future of teammate Fernando Alonso, a two-time Formula One champion, uncertain, Vandoorne securing a ride with McLaren for next season means that the team is committed to helping him continue to develop into a solid driver.
While the likelihood of him winning a race or even finishing a race in the top 5 with the team is small, he can gain valuable experience driving for a team like this one early on in his career for a couple of seasons before he tries to make a step up.
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