Despite qualifying 11th, Stoffel Vandoorne will start this afternoon's Japanese Grand Prix from ninth position โ taking advantage of three drivers ahead of him who earned grid penalties.
It means the young Belgian will get to have his cake and eat it, starting inside the top 10, but with the benefit of a choice of tyres as he didn't make it into the top-10 Q3 shootout.
โThat was actually a pretty good session for me. Not getting through into Q3 isn't actually that bad because it means I can start the race on a new tyre tomorrow. Starting from eight/ninth is pretty decent, and, on a new tyre, it should make for a good day,โ he said after the session.
"The limited running we've had so far this weekend has been the same for everyone, but we're usually pretty strong at working out what the tyres are going to do, how long they're going to last, and how to manage them efficiently. We'll definitely be looking to benefit from that.โ
โIt still looks quite hard to decide between a one- and two-stop strategy, so we'll also try to use that to our advantage. We're not in a bad place โ we can definitely race from this position.โ
