Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Other F1 teams have eyes on Vandoorne - Boullier

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McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says other teams are eyeing Stoffel Vandoorne and believes his performance in the Bahrain Grand Prix will have boosted his F1 career.

Vandoorne was called up to replace Fernando Alonso on Thursday afternoon after the Spaniard was ruled out of the race by the FIA on medical grounds. The 2015 GP2 champion duly outqualified team-mate Jenson Button and scored McLaren's first point of the season, and Boullier says it will have impressed a number of other F1 teams who are interested in the 24-year-old.

"He did a good weekend," Boullier said. "He didn’t put a foot wrong and he did a very good job.

"I think having done such a weekend for him it is a massive boost to his confidence. It is also a boost I guess for his career. I know a lot of people have some eyes on him. So it is good for him."

Rather than seeing it as a negative, Boullier believes Vandoorne was able to handle the pressure of his first race weekend more easily because of the late notice he received.

"I don’t know. People keep saying this, but I don’t believe it to be honest. I think at least he didn’t have much time to think about it. He didn’t put the wrong pressure on himself. We definitely didn’t put any pressure on him, but he did a brilliant job."

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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.