Stoffel Vandoorne believes his deficit to McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso has been exaggerated due to McLaren’s uncompetitive position towards the rear of the field.
Vandoorne is the only driver yet to beat his team-mate during qualifying this season, having trailed Alonso in each of the 14 sessions held so far.
Vandoorne came closest in Canada, finishing just 0.009s behind, but has failed to reach Q2 across the past six Grands Prix, and has on average qualified three places behind Alonso.
Vandoorne, though, feels his plight has been overstated by McLaren’s position in the standings and the closely-contested nature of Formula 1’s midfield.
“Maybe I haven’t actually been ahead of Fernando in qualifying but I’ve been very very close which is maybe more important than having one lucky shot and being in front,” said Vandoorne at the Italian Grand Prix, before confirmation of his McLaren exit.
“I’d prefer to be within a certain amount of lap time let’s say.
“From that point I still need to make a small step forward but in this current situation we have and all the problems we’ve been running through I think Fernando is probably the most used to driving in complicated situations let’s say.
“I’ve had a very good benchmark and I think some of you guys [media] have showed the statistic that I’ve been extremely close to Fernando.
“I think if the conditions are better and everything runs a bit more smooth there is a lot more potential to be much closer with each other.
“I think if you are first and second or you see those margins at the top of the field, that no-one really talks about it as they are first and second, or whatever the margin will be.
“I think everything is maybe a bit more exaggerated now because of the uncompetitiveness [sic].”
McLaren confirmed on Monday that Vandoorne will be replaced by Lando Norris in 2019.
Analysis: Does Vandoorne have a point?
A 14-0 defeat against a team-mate in qualifying is as bad as it gets after 14 rounds.
But does Vandoorne have a point in that McLaren’s current plight, and the competitive nature of the midfield (that in reality encompasses all bar the top three teams) has accentuated his position?
In assessing a head-to-head record it is best to analyse drivers within the same session, meaning that most comparisons take place in either Q1 or Q2.
There are some anomalies that need to be removed; Vandoorne complained of an inexplicable loss of downforce in Britain and Germany that left him floundering, an issue backed up by both Alonso and McLaren. That removes a deficit of 0.909s and 0.707s respectively.
This leaves an average deficit of 0.276s across 12 rounds.
McLaren-Honda’s numerous problems through 2017 made a direct comparison difficult, but in the 15 rounds where it is possible to compare, Vandoorne on average trailed Alonso by 0.312s.
It means that, pace wise, Vandoorne has crept closer to Alonso, but only by a very fractional amount, and without having beaten his team-mate, a feat he achieved four times last year.
Last season Alonso’s average qualifying result was 11.47, Vandoorne’s 13.45, a difference of 1.98 places. This year it is 12.43 for Alonso and 15.79, a difference of 3.36 places.
Therefore Vandoorne is fractionally closer to Alonso on pace but has on average qualified much further behind – and both have regressed compared to 2017.
This backs up Vandoorne’s comment that McLaren’s current predicament and the congested nature of the midfield has exaggerated his position. That gap has often meant the difference between Q1 and Q2 – and Vandoorne has frequently been on the wrong side.
Kimi Raikkonen (in 2014) and Felipe Massa, during a couple of phases, both faced larger deficits to Alonso when they were his team-mates at Ferrari.
But what of the battle between other team-mates?
In the interests of fairness, having removed Vandoorne’s two-round downforce issue, other mitigating circumstances – such as sessions where there was a crash, a strategy mistake or mechanical compromised a driver, or a driver was set for an engine penalty – must be removed.
It gives some interesting data – and Red Bull is perhaps the one from which some parallels can be drawn, even accounting for several sessions removed due to impending engine demotions, crashes and mechanicals. Daniel Ricciardo has only out-qualified Max Verstappen on three occasions this year, two of those coming in sessions where Verstappen crashed (his fault, naturally). Verstappen holds an average advantage of 0.133s but on average starts just 0.5 places above Ricciardo on account of Red Bull’s lonely position as the third-best package in the pecking order. Vandoorne’s deficit to Alonso is double that, but his positional loss is nearly seven times worse.
Elsewhere though, Vandoorne’s qualifying record is worse only than Marcus Ericsson’s, who holds an average 0.344s deficit to Sauber team-mate Charles Leclerc, having beaten him only three times.
Raikkonen holds an average 0.225s deficit to Sebastian Vettel, while the remaining team-mates are split by less than two-tenths of a second.
The Williams drivers are the closest, on average separated by only 0.024s, but that average comes through some wildly varying performances. Lance Stroll has twice beaten Sergey Sirotkin by over four-tenths of a second, with the Russian having held the same advantage (or more) over Stroll on three occasions. Those large fluctuations boil down to a very close mean.
In a very close midfield Vandoorne’s protestations are somewhat justified, and his plight has surely been accentuated by the quality of the driver on the other side of the garage.
But the relatively minimal progress, the need to prevail in an ultra-close midfield fight, and lack of any standout performances sheds some light on why McLaren has opted for a fresh start in 2019.
