Vandoorne should have been more 'aggressive' with McLaren

McLaren boss Zak Brown believes that Stoffel Vandoorne should have been more aggressive and proactive in his dealings with the team, like Fernando Alonso, but has hailed the outgoing Belgian as a "very, very nice guy" as their partnership comes to an end.

After winning the GP2 series, Vandoorne signed a two-year deal with McLaren, but has not lived up to his early promise and is 16th in the driver rankings for 2018, having accumulated only eight points.

A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that Vandoorne would be departing the team to move to Formula E after being replaced by Lando Norris for 2019.

Brown, who praised the Belgian as a man, thinks that one of his shortcomings is that he did not aggressively provide feedback to the team when things didn't go well - unlike Alonso.

“Was he too corporate? No, I wouldn’t say that,” the McLaren chief said.

“He’s a very, very nice guy, but maybe he should have been a bit more aggressive with us. When Fernando doesn’t like something about the car, he does not hesitate to raise his voice.

“Maybe for Stoffel it was more difficult for him to do that in this environment.”

Did everything we could today to recover some positions but it wasn’t quite enough. Time to enjoy some Texas BBQ now!! ???? pic.twitter.com/RSDZeA3AZB — Stoffel Vandoorne (@svandoorne) 21 October 2018

Alonso, too, positively reflected on Vandoorne's talent, but reckons he was let down by an inferior McLaren car.

“Stoffel was unlucky to be with McLaren at this time, with the cars he had at his disposal in these two years,” the two-time world champion admitted.

“I think it’s a good thing for him to change.

“He won in every category he ever did, but Formula 1 is the only discipline in motor racing where talent is not enough to overcome the weaknesses of the car.”

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