McLaren officially confirm Vandoorne for 2018

McLaren has officially confirmed that Stoffel Vandoorne will race for the team in 2018. Vandoorne is competing in his first full season in Formula 1, partnering Fernando Alonso at Woking based team. Despite his struggles early in the season, McLaren chief Zak Brown has continuously indicated that they want to keep the Belgian for 2018.

Vandoorne made his F1 debut in 2016 for McLaren at the Bahrain Grand Prix. He took current teammate Fernando Alonso's seat while the Spaniard recovered from a heavy crash in Australia one race prior to the race in Bahrain.

Vandoorne said: "I’m delighted that the team has now formally announced that I will continue to race for them next year, because I’ll be able to approach the second half of my rookie season with total focus on the job in hand: namely getting the very most I can out of my car, my engineers, and everything and everyone around me.

"I’ve already learned such a huge amount in the first half of my first season in Formula 1 - from my engineers, from my mechanics, from Eric [Boullier], from Zak [Brown] and from Jonathan [Neale], and also from Fernando [Alonso], who is a brilliant driver and also an excellent teammate.

"Last but not least, I want to say thank you to McLaren’s partners and fans for their loyalty and enthusiasm – they are the best in the business – and also to McLaren’s Executive Committee Principals, [Shaikh] Mohammed and Mansour [Ojjeh], who continue to put their faith in me."

Fergal Walsh