Vandoorne can’t uncork champagne yet

Vandoorne finished fifth, his New Zealand competitor Mitch Evans (Jaguar) took the GP victory. The season finale will follow on Sunday with the sixteenth and final round, again in the South Korean capital.

Difficult weather conditions

The Mercedes driver started the penultimate moto with a 36-point lead over first pursuer Evans. Immediately after the start, the GP was stopped for a while after a crash involving many cars. Vandoorne got through the tumultuous initial phase unscathed. The West Fleming eventually had to settle for fifth place.

Evans won the GP, ahead of Briton Oliver Rowland (Mahindra) and Brazilian Lucas di Grassi (Venturi). In the World Cup position, Vandoorne (195) is 21 points ahead of Evans (174). Number three Edoardo Mortara (144) is eliminated for first place.

“Today was quite a challenge in these difficult weather conditions,” said Vandoorne. “Maybe we didn’t do it perfectly as a team, but we did manage to score very important points. We just have to focus on ourselves, do a little better tomorrow and then wait and see what will happen.”

Very regular

Vandoorne only won one ePrix this season – the most prestigious in Monaco – but showed himself very regularly. Barely once did he finish outside the top ten (11th in Mexico). The West Fleming was on the podium seven times. In 2010, Vandoorne won the F4 Eurocup 1.6 as an 18-year-old, two years later the Eurocup Formula Renault. In 2015, he bagged the GP2 (Formula 2) title, after which he got a seat in Formula 1 at McLaren. He finished sixteenth in that world championship in 2017 and 2018.

He then became a test driver for Mercedes in the premier class and went on to drive the electric car championship. He finished sixteenth in 2019, second in 2020 and ninth last year.