Vandoorne: It is good that the door to F1 remains open

We can say that Stoffel Vandoorne came to motorsport… through catering, and in the most literal sense. His father, an architect by profession, once received a commission from the owner of a karting track near Kortrijk, the Belgian city where the Vandoorne family lived.

A restaurant had to be designed for this indoor karting track and during construction Vandoorne Sr. often visited, supervised the process and sometimes took his son along. And one day they gave Stoffel a go-kart ride…

At the age of 16 he became champion of Belgium, at the age of 18 he won the F4 Eurocup, at the age of 20 he won the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup and at the age of 23 he won the title in the GP2 series ( now Formula 2).

In 2013 he was accepted into McLaren’s youth program and three years later his unexpected debut in Formula 1 took place: Stoffel started the Bahrain Grand Prix in the car of Fernando Alonso, who missed the second round of that season . because he was recovering from a very unpleasant accident that took place two weeks earlier in Melbourne’s Albert Park.

In his debut race, Vandoorne finished 10th, opening the scoring on his first attempt. But his further career in Formula 1 was unsuccessful and after two seasons at McLaren he switched to Formula E, where he became world champion in 2022.

In addition, Stoffel maintained and maintains ties with Formula 1 all this time: he served as a reserve driver for McLaren, Mercedes and since last year he has been working in the same capacity with Aston Martin, where fate brought him back together with Alonso, his former partner .

“At first, after Formula 1, it was not easy for me,” Vandoorne said in an interview with the championship’s official website. – When you work all your life to get into F1, and then it all comes to an unexpected end, you worry at first. But I think the move to Formula E and the opportunity to combine it with endurance racing has allowed me to regain both my former enthusiasm and love for motorsport.

The collaboration with Mercedes offered the opportunity to work with a large factory team. They dominated F1 at the time and I had a lot of confidence that Mercedes would do well in Formula E. We managed to win that championship, which was definitely one of the highlights of my career.

When you work as a reserve driver in a Formula 1 team, in my opinion this is also a useful experience that gives you the opportunity to maintain good fitness. What I do at Aston Martin and the way we work in this team, which has great resources, helps me both in Formula E and in the WEC. It’s good that this collaboration continues and I’m trying to make the best of it.

I want to win another title in Formula E, but I also work for the Peugeot factory team in the WEC, and there is one famous race that everyone wants to win: the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A few years ago Fernando did it with Toyota and I want to win there too.”

At the same time, Vandoorne assures that he would be happy to return to Formula 1 if such an opportunity suddenly arises: “I have no doubt that I am still capable of this. Although I haven’t driven F1 cars for a while, I am still in good shape and competing at a competitive level in other racing series.

In addition, I have had the opportunity to work on tests a few times – it is good that I do not lose touch with F1, although now there are almost no opportunities to drive these cars. But I am sure that if the opportunity arises, I will be ready for it.

I’m probably already psychologically better prepared for Formula 1 than when I first started Grand Prix, and now I might enjoy it more. It is good that this door remains open, because you never know what awaits you in the future.”