In the paddock: Edd Straw

Stoffel Vandoorne is failing to live up to expectations at Mclaren. But here’s why Toro Rosso, short of drivers for 2019, should sign him anyway

Stoffel Vandoorne is the only driver who has failed to outqualify his team-mate in 2018. He hasn’t scored a point for nine races. The Mclaren team that has had him on its books since 2013 is on the brink of giving up on him. He seems all washed up.

You might believe Vandoorne has been‘found out’. But he’s still the driver that tore up the junior categories on his way to grand prix racing and that is what makes him the ideal solution to Red Bull’s Toro Rosso driver shortage in 2019. While this might be considered a marriage of convenience for a‘failed’driver and a junior scheme that is lacking drivers with a superlicence, it’s one that could pay off for both.

Vandoorne has not forgotten how to drive, and he’s clearly not out of his depth in Formula 1. Remember, this was a driver who scored a point on his one-off debut in a Mclaren-honda in

Bahrain 2016 – outqualifying Jenson Button in a car he’d not driven before Friday practice. And he has a stellar junior formula CV. Yet if he is to stay on the grid next year, unless something changes dramatically, it’s only Toro Rosso and Sauber – on top of an unexpected reprieve from Mclaren – who could conceivably give Vandoorne that second chance.

But why does he deserve it? Usually, you’d demand a driver in the second half of his second full season to have made more progress and start to achieve a more consistently high standard of performance. Particularly if they are a driver coming into F1 with the reputation that Vandoorne has carried. But he is not in a usual situation. Vandoorne’s increasing plight has been a sideshow in the Mclaren/honda/renault/alonso circus for the past 18 months and his reputation has been shattered.

It seemed Vandoorne was on the brink of a breakthrough earlier this year. After an up and down first part of 2018, where he struggled with the car’s rear-end instability, Vandoorne was as quick as, perhaps even quicker than, team-mate Fernando Alonso at Monaco before a rear suspension problem manifested itself in qualifying that also caused significant graining in the race.

In Canada, one of his worst circuits of 2017, he was just 0.009 seconds off Alonso in qualifying. This confirmed Vandoorne had made significant progress in balancing up his natural driving style – turning in aggressively and carrying good speed into the corner – with ensuring he didn’t ask too much of the car and compromise the exit. But car problems soon intervened. At the British and German GPS Vandoorne was battling chassis issues that meant he simply didn’t have the same level of downforce as Alonso.

Vandoorne would have finished ninth in Hungary, a few seconds behind Alonso, without a gearbox failure and that again seemed like a reset. But at Spa, he again had all sorts of difficulties during Friday practice – in the first part of FP2 describing the car as “undriveable”, before having the misfortune to be shoved off the track by the unsighted Valtteri Bottas in FP3. In the race, a justified gamble on an early pitstop under the safety car ensured he spent the race at the back.

The Spa weekend, which Vandoorne went into presumably hoping to continue his Hungary form, seems to have been the tipping point for him. After Friday practice, during which possible replacement Lando Norris also ran, Vandoorne said:“first of all the team should give a car that is able to run on track before we can really compare.”after the race, he questioned Mclaren’s development rate. After a season of toeing the party line, saying the right things while his career got away from him, it seems Vandoorne has decided to bear his teeth.

Has Vandoorne extracted the maximum from his situation with Mclaren? Probably not, as even amid the problems he’s had in an unstable team he’s had a disappointing season. This is elite sport and drivers must make the best of whatever their situation is, and Vandoorne hasn’t. But you also have to consider just how difficult the situation has been. What he needs is a reset, which is what a move to Toro Rosso could provide.

It’s not clear what Red Bull’s mindset is when it comes to selecting a driver or whether Vandoorne is of any interest to the team. But he should be, especially given Toro Rosso’s options are limited for replacing Pierre Gasly and, should it not retain him after attempting to replace him earlier this season, Brendon Hartley. While Red Bull likes to grow its own, perhaps this time it should consider‘recycling’a driver who has shown prodigious ability in the past?

There’s every chance Vandoorne won’t get a second chance in

F1. Often drivers don’t, and for all the problems surrounding him at Mclaren he will have had two full seasons to convince the team, or another one, that he’s worth persevering with. But if anyone does take the gamble, Vandoorne could repay them in spades. This is what makes him worthy of another F1 shot.

After all, he potentially offers the most valuable commodity there is in F1 – performance. Even if he hasn’t shown that anywhere near enough over the past 18 months.

“VANDOORNE HAS NOT FORGOTTEN HOW TO DRIVE AND IS NOT OUT OF HIS DEPTH”