Vandoorne hopes he's done enough to stay at McLaren

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Stoffel Vandoorne is heading into the next two back-to-back races with half an eye on his Formula 1 future at McLaren.

The Belgian driver started 2018 season with three points finishes in the first four races. However, he's not been in the top ten since Azerbaijan.

It leaves him with just eight championship points this season, compared with 40 for his big name team mate Fernando Alonso.

So far the team has made no decisions on its driver line-up for 2019. Much will huge on whether Alonso stays at Woking or decides to look elsewhere. Meanwhile rising star Lando Norris is waiting in the wings for his F1 break while plying his trade this year in Formula 2.

The team has previously said it will start discussing its driver plans over the summer break that immediately follows the German and Hungarian Grand Prix races. It leaves Vandoorne with just two more outings to prove he deserves to keep his seat for another season.

Vandoorne: Despite reshuffle, McLaren's season 'not a write off'

“I think it’s the time of the year where everyone talks to everyone,” Vandoorne commented. "Before the summer break is usually a moment everyone speaks about the driver market. That’s kind of normal.

“We’ve never really discussed that with the media so I’m not really going to go into that."

The 26-year-old insisted he was "pretty sure" he'd done enough to warrant a new contract at McLaren despite not always having the results to show for his efforts.

“For sure it’s not been a year and a half I was hoping to have in Formula 1,” he admitted. “Ultimately we’ve been struggling a lot in terms of the results.

"We’ve had both years a car that struggled to fight for points let’s say," he noted. “It’s not always easy to show the right things in those circumstances. But that’s the situation we’re in."

With the German Grand Prix omitted from last year's calendar, this will be the first time that Vandoorne has raced at the Hockenheimring in a Formula 1 car. But like many of the younger drivers on the grid, he's had experience of the circuit in junior championships.

"Although it’s the only Grand Prix on the current calendar that I haven’t raced at in Formula 1, I did race at Hockenheim in GP2 and got a podium," he pointed out. "There’s definitely good memories there for me.

“We know that the Hockenheimring is a challenging track, with long, fast straights that require a lot of power," he described.

"Also a slower, tighter section at the end of the lap where you need good car balance and traction out of the corners.

“The addition of the third DRS zone will mix things up a bit and the extra overtaking opportunity will hopefully mean an exciting race," he said. "We can have some good battles for the fans.

"The German crowd really love their motorsport so I think there’ll be a great atmosphere there after two years away."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.