Stoffel Vandoorne felt Qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix was a disappointing affair after the Belgian could only set the fifteenth fastest time around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
The McLaren F1 Team racer only just made it into the second segment of Qualifying, scrapping through by just 0.049 seconds ahead of Pierre Gasly, and despite feeling he got the maximum out of the car, Vandoorne was unable to prevent himself being slowest in Q2, although he was only 0.009 seconds behind team-mate Fernando Alonso.
“Today’s result is a bit disappointing,” said Vandoorne. “From this morning, we’ve found ourselves in this very tight group, and it seems like we didn’t make a step forward into qualifying.
“It’s a shame, as yesterday we had good pace going into FP1 and FP2, especially considering we didn’t run the Hypersoft in FP2.
“This morning we looked to be getting close to being able to get into Q3. In qualifying, there was nothing particularly wrong – the balance was good and I think we more or less got the maximum out of our car if you look at the lap-times – but we’re just lacking pace. It’s a shame we weren’t able to progress further.”
Vandoorne feels the race pace of the MCL33 should be better on Sunday and with a free choice of starting tyre, he feels there will be opportunities to move forward and perhaps attack for a top ten finish.
“The race is a different story,” admits the Belgian. “There’s a lot to prepare for tomorrow – the race is always interesting here in terms of tyre degradation, especially for the guys that are going to have to start on the Option tyre – so we’ll have to wait and see.
“Our race pace is usually better, and at least we have the freedom of tyre choice, so hopefully that will give us an opportunity tomorrow. This is also a circuit where we can overtake, so we’ll see what we can do.”
