Vandoorne has been a little under the pump this season as his performances have been up to the mark and Alonso is a little overachieving with that McLaren car(or maybe Vandoorne is under-achieving a little bit).
McLaren were supposed to significantly improve this season with Renault coming in as the engine supplier, and while they have been next to no reliability issues, they haven’t really been able to challenge the top 3 teams.
Alonso ended up retiring in the Monaco GP, but Vandoorne feels that McLaren’s Alonso centric strategy hampered his race as well.
Vandoorne ended up in 14th spot in what was a largely pained race for him.
Fernando pitted early on in the race and Vandoorne was kept on the race track with those deteriorating tyres, something that Vandoorne felt lowered his chances of scoring points in Monaco.
“I felt that way definitely. I think we should have pitted five laps earlier. Fernando came just ahead and we just pitted that lap when the damage was done already.
“Disappointing. We were on the same strategy as Nico and we should have finished right behind or even in front of him. We lost a lot of time at the pit stop [with a pit light delay] and lost a lot of track position.
“We had some pace in the end on the supersoft tyres. That pace was good but Monaco is Monaco. We know overtaking is so hard around here.” Vandoorne said.
Vandoorne has managed just 8 points this season while Alonso has 32 points with the same car. Yes, the team strategy has been a little skewed towards Alonso, but Vandoorne too has seemed a little off pace all through the season.
