On Sunday morning at the Circuit of the Americas, the McLaren Honda team identified an issue with Stoffel Vandoorne's MGU-H, but without sufficient time to change that element before the pit lane opened, the decision was made to change his car's entire power unit.
This inflicted a further 25-place grid penalty on his starting position in addition to the original five-place drop for changing the ICE on Friday morning.
Starting from the back of the grid as a result, Stoffel made a great start, gaining three places on the first lap, and began to make good progress through the field.
He put up an impressive fight on a track that he'd never raced on before, overtaking [Marcus] Ericsson, [Kevin] Magnussen, [Romain] Grosjean and [Lance] Stroll (who later re-passed him on the final lap).
Despite a valiant effort, he finished in 12th position just outside the points and with little reward for the difficulties faced at the US venue since Friday.
โIt was actually a pretty exciting race for me! Even though it wasn't for any points, I think I put in a very good performance after a difficult qualifying starting from the back. We made a lot of overtakes on merit in the corners, which maybe weren't really expected considering the lack of straight line speed we have,โ he said.
โWe had a good strategy and some good fights on track, so I'm happy with my pace and I think we maximised our potential. It was a shame to get so close to the points, but we were always going to struggle starting so far back today with the penalty.โ
โIt's always satisfying when you can overtake on track and we were reasonably competitive, which is encouraging, but we'll have to wait and see for the next few races. We know that some tracks suit us a bit better than others and this one should have been one where we scored points. We can't guarantee that we won't have to take more penalties in Mexico, but we'll wait and see and hopefully can make the most of every chance we get.โ
