McLaren driver Stoffel Vandoorne has admitted that the Azerbaijan race weekend has been tough for him. The Belgian was unable to get out of Q1 on Saturday afternoon, which was the first time for him this season.

The McLaren driver was on the bubble before Williams’ Lance Stroll edged him out in the closing moments. Despite the heartbreak, Vandoorne’s weekend has been nothing to write home about. He finished close to the bottom of the timesheets in all three practice sessions.

“It’s been a bit of a tough weekend for me,” said Vandoorne.  “During practice, it seemed like, whenever I was on-track, I was in the wrong place, or encountered a yellow-flag at the wrong time. In fact, Q1 was probably the first session this weekend where I finally managed to complete a quick-lap.

“In the end, I was much happier with the car; we still lack a bit of top speed, so we really need to follow another car to benefit from their speed, and I missed out on that on my final lap.”

Vandoorne hopes that he can make up some ground from sixteenth on the grid on Sunday. He believes that the strengths of the MCL33 are under braking. According to him, this weapon could see him move towards the points.

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“Still, our race performance looks better than qualifying,” said Vandoorne.  “We’ve seen so many incidents under braking this weekend; and that’s a real strength of our car, it feels very good under braking, and that’s a key requirement for the race.

“I think we can pull together a good race performance tomorrow.”

McLaren are currently in the middle of a redemption arc and are slowly turning their season around. After 3 fruitless years with Honda, their fortunes are starting to turn around.