Stoffel Vandoorne delighted to have beaten Jenson Button

The beginner does better than the world champion. Stoffel Vandoorne confirmed during the Bahrain qualifications all the good things that were said about him since his domination of last season’s GP2. He delivered a very commendable performance, even though he had a slight scare in Q1: « *I knew there was a bit more performance to find. I think we more or less got the maximum in qualifying today. It was close in Q1, but in Q2, I did a clean lap without mistakes.* »

He may obviously regret missing Q3 by a few tenths, but he’s satisfied with having beaten Jenson Button in the performance exercise over one lap, even though he doesn’t overstate it: « I knew after yesterday and this morning that I had a similar pace to Jenson and that if I improved a bit, I might be able to challenge him. He’s a world champion and an excellent driver, obviously. So, it was a good reference for me this weekend. I have a lot of respect for him. »

Good sport, Jenson Button acknowledges the very good work of his weekend teammate: « I don’t particularly like oversteer. So I’m not very happy with my lap in Q2. That being said, Stoffel did a very good job today and I didn’t do as well. He is very fast, he has already won here before and I think he has proven how good he is on a circuit like this. We knew how fast he could be, especially on one lap. »

Eric Boullier, the team manager, is keen on maintaining harmony within the team and has therefore congratulated his two drivers for their respective performances, preferring to place the blame on the team rather than the drivers: « Jenson once again delivered a very professional job and might have gone even faster if we had optimized his settings in Q2. In Q1, he had a bit of understeer. We therefore tried to adjust this in Q2 by giving him a bit more front wing. But in the end, we went a little too far, resulting in oversteer. »

For the team, the Bahrain race is even more important because the state is one of the team’s shareholders. Therefore, it is even more crucial than usual to fight to score points.

With the participation of www.racingbusiness.fr