Vandoorne: hard to predict McLaren form in 2017

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McLaren's new full-time driver Stoffel Vandoorne says that all the new technical rules mean that it's still hard to tell how the team will fare in the forthcoming 2017 Formula One world championship battle.

"It is so difficult for me to know where we will be in terms of performance, and I think for everybody it is a little bit the same – they don't know exactly where we will be, the Belgian driver told Motorsport.com this week.

"Of course we expect the top teams to fight for the top positions and it will always be like that. But we don't know in which order yet.

"With new regulations, every week you come in there are new things, and new things we learn about," he explained. "There has been progress over the past weeks and over Christmas, there has been very good progress.

"But the thing is, where do you put that compared to the other teams?" he said. "We don't know, and that is something we will have to wait until we finally get on track."

Vandoorne not focussed on just beating Alonso in 2017

The 24-year-old said that this meant he could just concentrate on his own performance during his rookie season, as he steps into the seat formerly taken by Jenson Button.

"I haven't set any real expectations so far," he insisted. "I am just focusing on what I have always done – making sure I don't make any mistakes, making sure I am up to date with all the processes and procedures.

"The most important thing is that I come to Barcelona testing and we can start focusing on performance and not having to go through all the driver bits that I should learn."

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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.