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'2017 was probably my last chance at F1' - Vandoorne

After a long time waiting in the wings for his chance to race in Formula One, Stoffel Vandoorne finally made a successful race début earlier this year in Bahrain, and next year will take over from Jenson Button as a full time driver for McLaren.

But the 24-year-old Belgian driver admits that he had begun to worry that this moment would never arrive.

"Time is always pressing in a driver’s career, so I knew it had to be next year - as it was probably my last chance of getting to Formula One," he told the official Formula One website this week.

"I remember a year ago when I was finishing GP2 that of course there were a lot of rumours around that I might get the drive already for 2016. Alas it didn’t happen back then, but I remember all the hype surrounding it.

"To be honest I was a little disappointed at the beginning - it was a tough moment for me to understand that Formula One would have to wait another year.

"But I kept my head cool and won the last two GP2 races that season and actually broke the record in that series. I knew it was best to give the answer on the track.

When the opportunity to move into Formula One didn't materialise at the beginning of 2016, Vandoorne took up the offer to drive in Japanese Super Formula instead.

"I’ve won almost everything in Europe, so what else was there to do?" he explained.

"McLaren tried to keep me busy - keep me in the racing loop," he continued. "The series is very popular in Japan and it got me close to the Japanese working procedures. McLaren and Honda is still a very recent cooperation and in that way it gave me the chance to work with Honda engineers and understand how they ‘tick’. I am sure that will help me in 2017."

But through it all, Vandoorne still felt sure that despite the delays, his opportunity would finally come.

"It is a big relief that finally in 2017 I will be a fully-fledged Formula One driver, that McLaren-Honda is giving me that opportunity.

"I have spent so much time with this team already and had a lot of success already in the junior series. The team has really been preparing me for Formula One for years - and now we both want to get rewarded."

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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.