Why Stoffel Vandoorne Will Succeed Where McLaren’s Previous Young Drivers Failed

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: September 25, 2016

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McLaren have a recent history of chewing up and spitting out young Formula One drivers. With 24-year-old rookie Stoffel Vandoorne taking over Jenson Button's race seat in 2017, will the results be any different for the young Belgian than for Sergio Perez or Kevin Magnussen?

Back in 2012, Perez came this close to winning a wet Malaysian Grand Prix, just his 19th F1 race. Ultimately, the then-22-year-old settled for second in Malaysia and scored two other podium finishes in Canada and Italy. In September, McLaren named him as their replacement for Lewis Hamilton, who was leaving for Mercedes.

Unfortunately for Perez, his arrival coincided with a downturn in McLaren's form and (to that point) one of the worst season's in the team's history. While Button and Hamilton combined for seven wins and 13 podiums in 2012, the closest the team got to the podium in 2013 was Button's fourth place at the season-ending race in Brazil. He finished 20 seconds behind third-place man Fernando Alonso.

By the end of the year, Perez was out of a drive. It appeared he was taking the fall for McLaren's failure to design a competitive car, although then-team principal Martin Whitmarsh denied that was the case.

In an interview with the official F1 website, he said McLaren opted to replace Perez with Magnussen because a deal fell through to place the Dane in a race seat at another team. Magnussen had just won the Formula Renault 3.5 title and, according to Whitmarsh, was such an extraordinary talent that he could not be kept out of F1 any longer.

Less than 12 months later, after scoring McLaren's best result in two years—second in his F1 debut in Australia—that extraordinary talent was pushed aside after a single season to make way for the second coming of Alonso.

After a year as McLaren's reserve driver, he received an email from McLaren CEO Ron Dennis telling him he was out of the team.

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Article Source: Bleacher Report - Formula 1

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