After ending busy back-to-back races in the USA and Mexico, McLaren's rookie driver Stoffel Vandoorne is now in Brazil for the penultimate race of the season.
The legendary Autรณdromo Josรฉ Carlos Pace is a relatively short, albeit challenging, track. It is highly technical with a variety of swooping corners and elevation changes, and overtaking is notoriously tricky. PU set-up will be key to ensuring good driveability throughout the lap.
Even though he failed to score points last time out in Mexico, the weekend ended on a high for the team after Fernando snatched an all-important championship point for finishing in tenth place and they are now looking to maintain that momentum in Interlagos.
โI'm looking forward to tackling another new circuit next weekend in Brazil, especially one that is considered so legendary among the fans and the other drivers. Interlagos is the place where championships have been won and lost, and classic grands prix have taken place with great names like Senna and Prost winning some of F1's most famous races,โ he said.
โLike every circuit we race on, I put in a lot of preparation with my engineers in the simulator, so by the time we head out onto the track on Friday morning I feel completely ready to tackle it and already comfortable with the layout and set-up the circuit requires. This means that, like Fernando, I can spend FP1 dialling-in the car to the track and conditions and give valuable feedback to the team so they can gather as much as information as possible.โ
โQualifying at Interlagos is always important because you never know what can happen in the race. In Mexico I had a great start, so if we can start further up the grid in Brazil โ providing we can avoid more penalties โ it'll open up good opportunities in the race. It's important to stay out of trouble and have a clean race and then we can see what we can do from there. There's everything to play for and I'm excited to experience the famous atmosphere at Interlagos thanks to the enthusiastic Brazilian fans.โ
