Stoffel Vandoorne believes his seventh place at the Malaysian Grand Prix signalled his best drive in Formula 1 so far, as he benefited from a poor decision at Williams and then out-paced them.
The Belgian was able to maintain his grid position having moved up to fifth at the start moving ahead of Esteban Ocon with only Sergio Perez and a recovering Sebastian Vettel able to overhaul the McLaren over the 56 laps.
What would help his cause was Williams opting to switch their drivers, Lance Stroll and Felipe Massa after the Brazilian had been able to get ahead in the pit-stop phase. That move would allow Vandoorne to stay ahead, however, and then pull away from the pair until the chequered flag.
“I can definitely say that, for me, that was my best drive in F1 until now,” the former GP2 champion said after matching his seventh from the wet/ dry race in Singapore two weeks prior. “To finish seventh on the circuit like this, and being very quick all weekend, to qualify seventh, we thought it was going to be very difficult today, and we had a fantastic race.
“I got a great, great start — and then we knew it was going to be difficult to keep the Force Indias and Williams’ behind, but only Perez came through. We pushed like crazy, lap after lap, trying to manage the fuel and tyres at the same time.
“Tough conditions out there, but we managed the gap with Lance very well, so extremely satisfied with seventh.”
Thee had been some criticism of Vandoorne after what was a difficult first half of his first full season with the team, but now the 25-year-old thinks he is starting to show some of what many had been expecting.
“The last races have been very, very good as well for me. I’m definitely working hard with the team, putting the pressure on [Alonso], and it’s good for the team spirit,” he claimed.
With his third points finish of the season at Sepang, he has also now moved ahead of teammate Fernando Alonso in the Drivers’ Championship after being quicker than the Spaniard all weekend.
As for the 36-year-old, after being downbeat about his race chances after qualifying 10th, the double world champion would just miss out on points in 11th and rued becoming stuck behind the Haas of Kevin Magnussen.
“Already from the very beginning, the second corner, the two Williams touch each other in front of us and slowed us a little bit,” he said. “We lost a few places and then we were always in the secondary groups, a little bit slower than our pace but we could not overtake and that really compromised our race.
“We had better days and hopefully in Japan, we come back in strong form.”
