Vandoorne feels he was sacrificed for Alonso

Stoffel Vandoorne has confessed that he felt his race in the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday was sacrificed in favour of his McLaren team-mate, Fernando Alonso, who would go on to not even finish after being forced into retirement in the closing stages.

Vandoorne was positioned solidly just outside of the top 10 ahead of the likes of Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Kevin Magnussen, Brendon Hartley, and Marcus Ericsson.

The latter four would pit between laps 13 and 17, but it would take Vandoorne until the 20th to go in - one after Alonso, who rejoined ahead of his team-mate and Verstappen.

It is Vandoorne's belief that he should have been pitted quicker, and responded in agreement when asked if he felt his race was sacrificed for Alonso.

“I felt [that way], definitely. I think we should have pitted five laps earlier.

“Fernando came just ahead and we just pitted that lap when the damage was done already. Disappointing.”

The pit would be the nail in the coffin for Vandoorne, as it cost him another few valuable seconds.

“I don’t know what happened but the green light just wasn’t coming,” the Belgian said of the pit delay. “We lost a few seconds there.”

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McLaren's engines are provided by Renault and Vandoorne reckons they should at least have matched or bettered the race of Nico Hulkenberg, a Renault driver, who carried a similar on-track tactic.

“We were on the same strategy as Nico and we should have finished right behind or even in front of him,” Vandoorne insisted.

“We lost a lot of time at the pitstop and lost a lot of track position.

“We had some pace in the end on the supersoft tyres. That pace was good but Monaco is Monaco. We know overtaking is so hard around here.”