Stoffel Vandoorne defended his performance compared to Fernando Alonso at McLaren and described his team mate as the hardest benchmark he’s likely to face in Formula 1.

Although Vandoorne has been beaten by Alonso in every qualifying session so far this year, he says the gap between them in terms of lap time is encouraging.

“Maybe I haven’t actually been ahead of Fernando in qualifying but I’ve been very close,” said Vandoorne. “Which maybe is more important than maybe just having one lucky shot and being in front.

“I prefer to be within a certain amount of lap time, let’s say. From that point [I] still need to make a small step forward.”

Vandoorne has been 0.35s slower than Alonso on average in qualifying so far this year. This is less than Daniel Ricciardo’s average deficit to Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen’s average deficit to Sebastian Vettel.

The problem McLaren has experienced with its car, and the need to sacrifice practice sessions to run a testing programme, has made life more difficult for Vandoorne, he says.

“With all the problems we’ve been running through I think Fernando’s probably the most used to driving in complicated situations,” he told media at Monza.

“I’ve had a very good benchmark and I think some of you guys have showed the statistic that I’ve been extremely close to Fernando. I think the conditions are better and everything runs a bit more smooth then there is a lot more potential to be much closer.”

Vandoorne’s place at the team is yet to be confirmed. McLaren has already signed Carlos Sainz Jnr for the 2019 F1 season and said it will reveal the identity of his team mate within the next month.

However Vandoorne doubts he could be measured against a higher standard than the one he faces at the moment.

“I’m racing with Fernando now in the team so that is the benchmark I have,” he said. “And it’s probably the highest benchmark I will ever have.”

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2018 F1 season