McLaren Honda Formula 1 Team‘s Stoffel Vandoorne scored his highest points score finish of his Formula One career at today’s Singapore Grand Prix.
It was expected that McLaren would do relatively well at the Marina Bay Sands Circuit, but both Vandoorne and his team-mate Fernando Alonso had exceeded expectations during the build-up to the race, even running fourth and fifth fastest during one of the practice sessions.
Unfortunately for Alonso, he was not able to display this pace during the race, as he was caught up in the collision between Max Verstappen, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel at the first corner. Vandoorne, however, stayed out of trouble and managed to finish the race in seventh place.
The Belgian was close to finishing sixth, crossing the line just three seconds behind Renault Sport Formula 1 Team‘s Jolyon Palmer, but a slow pitstop was enough to compromise his chance of more points.
“That was definitely an eventful race!” he commented.
“To race under the rain at the beginning was definitely not easy, so my main focus was just to stay out of trouble, which we managed to do. From that point on, I just managed my own race.”
Vandoorne had only scored one points finish of the year so far, at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Today’s result added six points to McLaren’s championship total, meaning that they now have seventeen points and are clear of the bottom of the table.
“I think seventh place was really the best it was going to get for me today. Sixth was perhaps on the cards at one point, but it didn’t work out at my second pit-stop. After that, I just focused on getting everything I could from the car and maximising the performance.
“Getting a couple of points means we finish our weekend on a high.”