If you look at the amount of drivers on the grid, you may be able to pin point a certain few who are just a walking bag of bad luck this year. Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso and the one which, in my opinion, has had one heck of a time as of late; Stoffel Vandoorne. In no way, shape or form, does a driver with Stoffel's credibility, have a talent that suddenly "disappears." It's a mystery I am eager to solve. A driver like Stoffel deserves his place on the Formula One grid but why is it just not working out for him?
Stoffel Vandoorne was born in Belgium in the month of March 1992. It wasn't until, at the age of six, during a visit to a local karting track that the Belgian found his passion for motorsport. During his first few years of karting professionally, like many young racers starting out, Stoffel was hindered by a lack of funds. However, he went onto win the Belgian KF2 Championship and finished as a runner up in the CIK-FIA World Cup in 2009. Having a total of 45,000 euros as his winnings, Stoffel could start his racing car career.
Stoffel spent his first season in single-seaters racing in the F4 Eurocup 1.6 series where he won the championship with his first attempt. Because of this, he graduated into the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 series for the following year. He finished fifth overall in this championship before going onto win the title the following year which helped him move up another series, this time to Formula Renault 3.5 where he would come face to face with fellow Formula One drivers Kevin Magnussen and later on in the championship year; Carlos Sainz. After a tough season fighting against the Dane that was Magnussen, Stoffel ended the year in second, just points behind Magnussen. At the end of that year, Stoffel left the Formula Renault family and moved to the GP2 series where it took him only two attempts to win the championship. It was in this year, 2015, in which Stoffel started to catch people's eyes. He dominated that years GP2 season, winning the championship with 108 points difference to his nearest contender, American; Alexander Rossi.
However, due to the limited amount of seats available in Formula One, Stoffel would not graduate to the series for the 2016 season. McLaren sent him to race in Super Formula, finishing fourth overall in that series. But Stoffel didn't have to feel disappointed about missing out on a Formula One seat for the 2016 season for long. Due a catastrophic crash in Melbourne, Fernando Alonso was injured and thus had to sit out the following round in Bahrain. Stoffel was called up and made his debut that weekend. It is more than fair to say that Stoffel impressed many on his debut. He first managed to out-qualify teammate Jenson Button on his first attempt before going onto score points in the race when he finished tenth. Stoffel became the first reserve driver since Sebastian Vettel in 2007 to score points on their debut.
Later that year, current McLaren driver Jenson Button announced his retirement from the sport and that Stoffel Vandoorne would be the guy to replace him. I, personally, was looking forward to seeing Stoffel race a full season in Formula One. After seeing him race in his early single-seater career, I believed we were in for something special. However, things just didn't go as planned.
Stoffel finished a miserable sixteenth in his first full season in Formula One. Although at this point, McLaren were racing with a very ureliable Honda engine. So, seeing both McLaren's finish the season near the bottom of the table was no surprise. However, with a change to engine suppliers for the 2018 season, many were expecting both McLaren drivers to be back on it. Scoring points and possibly podiums but we are now over half way through the season and Stoffel currently sits sixteenth in the championship with a mear eight points.
It is no lie that McLaren are still struggling. But does this prove, with their new engine, that Honda were not to blame at all?
Stoffel has literally been no where bar the back of the grid this season. Where as Fernando has been, at best, just below the top ten. But what annoys me most is that people are looking at Stoffel's recent performance, race results and qualifying compared to Fernando and writing him off. Let's delve into this a bit more. If you look at all of Fernando Alonso's teammates in the past ten or so years, Stoffel is the guy who has been closest to him, racing wise. You could say it has been a bit unfair for Stoffel to go into Formula One with Fernando Alonso as a teammate. Fernando is supposedly the best in the world. And, with a car as temperamental as McLaren's and an engine as unreliable as Renault's, things just haven't been fair on the Belgian. There is no way Stoffel has lost his talent. He's been unlucky. If he looses his Formula One seat after this weekend then a talent has been lost. McLaren or another team need to give him a chance. This guy has a lot more to show us yet.
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