Stoffel Vandoorne says a phone call from Mercedes boss Toto Wolff ultimately led to him joining affiliate HWA for this season’s Formula E championship.
Vandoorne has been linked with McLaren since 2011 and made his Formula 1 debut for the team in 2016, stepping up to a full-time seat for 2017.
But Vandoorne struggled amid McLaren’s own malaise and the team opted to promote reserve Lando Norris alongside new recruit Carlos Sainz Jr. for the 2019 season.
It was announced on Monday that Vandoorne will compete in Formula E from 2018/19 for the Mercedes-backed HWA operation, which won the DTM title with Vandoorne’s new team-mate Gary Paffett at Hockenheim last weekend.
“I had the first contact in about September, I would say,” said Vandoorne over a Formula E move.
“I actually had a phone call with Toto, and he asked if I would be interested to join HWA for the Formula E project. And yeah, I mean, I didn’t really have to think about that.
“I think HWA as a team has done extremely well in the past, just last weekend it won the championship in the DTM.
“The plans for the future are looking very exciting.
“When I had the chance to join Formula E with HWA, and knowing what the future is holding, I didn’t really have to think twice.”
Vandoorne added that getting a new team up to speed operationally is likely to be the biggest challenge before December’s season-opener in Saudi Arabia.
“I’ve had two days in the car, so I had a bit of a feeling already, how the feeling is behaving,” he said.
“We missed quite a bit of running [on Tuesday at Valencia] because of a few issues, but it was always going to be that way.
“The team is completely new, there’s a lot of things we have to get on top of.
“The aim is to get on top of things operationally, get the procedures right, and turn up with a good package at the first race in Riyadh.”
Vandoorne will line up alongside several former racing rivals, including two from his rookie Formula 1 season in the form of ex-Williams racer Felipe Massa (Venturi) and former Manor/Sauber driver Pascal Wehrlein (Mahindra).
"It was nice to be back in this paddock and see so many familiar faces," he said.
"Lot of the drivers I’ve raced against, Robin [Frijns] in Formula Renault, Felipe in Formula 1, many others, it’s nice to see those people back, even teams I’ve been working with in the past, so I'm looking forward to this series."
