Data analysis at McLaren has revealed a downforce discrepancy between the cars of Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, suggesting a fundamental issue on the Belgian's MCL33.
Since Silverstone, Vandoorne has been trailing his team mate by a significant amount in every session and particularly in qualifying.
Saturday afternoon in Hockenheim, as he battled once again with his car issues, Vandoorne made up the rear, running over half a second behind Alonso in Q1 without a clear explanation for the deficit, and frustrating the 26-year-old.
"The situation today was the same as at Silverstone," said a disappointed Vandoorne.
"Since we hit the ground there we were the last car by some margin, and it’s turned out the same today and all weekend so far.
"It’s frustrating as we’ve changed a lot of parts on the car to try and fix the problems, but we haven’t yet managed to find a solution.
"I definitely haven’t forgotten how to drive. Between me and Fernando the cars are in a similar spec, but we can see some issues on the data on my side.
"The team has put in a lot of effort to change parts already, but it seems like we’re not really moving forward much and the team is looking at various options to see what else we can do.
"The priority now is to find a solution for the problem we have."
Alonso failed to make the Q3 cut but deemed himself happy with his P11 position on tomorrow's grid.
The Spaniard also acknowledged the downforce issue on his team mate's car.
"The car is getting better, the new parts are definitely improving our performance but everyone else is making small steps every race so we keep more or less the same gap with our rivals," said Alonso.
"However, we are moving in the right direction and hopefully we can bring more and bigger upgrades to the next few races.
"We need both McLarens to score points so we have to find what the issue on Stoffel’s car is, as it’s the second race that we’ve seen less downforce and a problem with that car."
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