Eric Boullier has said that Stoffel Vandoorne must change his driving style to improve his results in Formula 1. The Belgian has struggled with his McLaren-Honda so far this year and has been massively outshone by teammate Fernando Alonso.

Vandoorne failed to make it out of Q1 yesterday in qualifying, while Alonso went on to claim a sensational seventh position. Boullier says that in order for the 25-year-old to bring home stronger results, his style of driving must be changed.

"The reason is simple and Stoffel knows it very well," the Frenchman said. "The problem for rookies from the junior categories is the braking. He is used to braking very late and entering the corners on the brakes, but F1 is different. He has to change his driving style, but I am sure it will come," Boullier added.

Vandoorne admitted that he was struggling with the car in yesterday's practice and qualifying sessions and that analysing will be done to see what went wrong and how he can improve for the future.

"I struggled a bit in both sessions – everything felt a little bit more difficult – and I don’t really know why as I say. We need to analyse the data tonight and see what happened and what we can do for the race.

"It’s not been an easy start to the weekend for the team again and the most important thing is that we get on top of those issues and have some smooth running for the rest of the weekend. I don’t have any targets for the race– just to run a smooth race without any issues. I think strategy will be quite important and we’ll see what’s possible."

Fergal Walsh