No 'silly season' concerns for Vandoorne

Stoffel Vandoorne is on the sidelines this summer as the silly season unfolds, the Belgian expecting to stick to his long-term contract with McLaren.

Vandoorne has yet to score a point this season with the Woking-based outfit, but perennial reliability and performance woes associated with Honda's power unit are still hindering the progress of McLaren's drivers.

Still, the 25-year-old has delivered few good performances lately, including  outqualifying team mate Fernando Alonso at Silverstone, to warrant his remaining at McLaren.

"As we head to the summer, the heat is picking up with F1’s annual silly season of driver movements, but as far as I am concerned I won’t be getting that involved in it," he wrote in his Motorsport.com column.

"I have a long-term contract with McLaren and things are going well. I don’t see any problems to be with the team next year.

• Belgian GP sold-out thanks to Verstappen and Vandoorne

"I want to be with McLaren and I am working very hard with the engineers and the team to build on the future.

"Making that effort now is important because I really want us to prepare as well as possible for the moment when we are properly competitive and fighting there at the front."

McLaren boss Zak Brown recently gave Vandoorne his backing, dispite the Belgian's difficult maiden F1 season.

"He's in a difficult situation going up against Fernando Alonso and then the lack of reliability," said Brown. 

"Fernando can adapt to a lot of these issues quicker than Stoffel because he has not been to a lot of these tracks. We think he's a future world champion and we don't expect any change there." 

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