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McLaren's CEO Zak Brown has admitted that he would like to see Stoffel Vandoorne beat teammate Fernando Alonso more often in the second half of the season. Vandoorne has been heavily out-performed by Alonso this year, with the Belgian yet to trump the double-world champion in qualifying.
Vandoorne has a best finish of eighth place this season, which came at the Bahrain Grand Prix. He has failed to finish inside the top ten since Baku, and has bagged 36 fewer points than Alonso.
Brown clarified that the British squad is not disappointed with Vandoorne, but admits that it would like to see him get the better of Alonso on more occasions: "I wouldn't say we're disappointed by Stoffel," he said. "You'd like to see him beating his teammate more often than he has.
“That's the same in any situation. You'd love to see your teammates split right down the middle in beating each other every weekend. He's not been able to do that on a regular basis but I wouldn't say we're disappointed because last year we know we gave him a very difficult situation and this year we've not given him a very good car to work with.
“Given Fernando's talent and experience he's able to adapt to situations that aren't great. We all believe Stoffel's done an excellent job but we would like to see him beat Fernando more often.”
McLaren uncovered an unusual chassis fault in Vandoorne's car, which it believed hampered him over the British and German Grand Prix weekends. It was fixed for Hungary, with Vandoorne running inside the points before a gearbox problem forced him to retire.
However, the MCL33 is suffering from a general wind tunnel correlation issue this year. Sporting director Gil de Ferran says that the fast pace at which McLaren is moving to solve the problems is tough for Vandoorne.
“We've been trying to figure out how to progress with the car and how to address some of the balance issues that we've been having,” he stated. "As a result of that, not only is the car not an easy car, but we keep changing things at a very fast pace.
“That's very difficult for both drivers to deal with and certainly for a driver like Fernando, not only do I think that's one of his best traits, but his experience helps him a lot,” the Indy 500 champion added.
Fergal Walsh
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The world want to see Zak Brown shut up "more often".