As rookie seasons go, Stoffel Vandoorne's has been complicated - five retirements, one non-start... but also two impressive seventh-place finishes. Perhaps more importantly he's also stacked up very well against veteran team mate Fernando Alonso, still widely regarded as one of the best in the world. And there's further encouragement on the horizon, with the Belgian pinpointing a switch to Renault power - and Red Bull's form with the engine - as evidence that both he and McLaren will be making big steps forward next year...

Q: Stoffel, a rookie season is usually a time of hopes and aspirations. When did you realise that your ambitions would be heavily tested this year? Eric Boullier said it started to dawn on him in pre-season testing that 2017 would be tough...

Stoffel Vandoorne: I look at it this way: throughout all my career so far I've had to deal with pressure. I had no funding from home to easily progress through the junior series, but I was helped out by the Belgium Federation at the beginning - and they always made it quite clear to me that I had to win series because I had to win the prize money. So failing has never been an option!

So with all the issues we had throughout this season I was never 'traumatised', but instead always wanted to fight the odds to get the best possible result and learn with every lap that I did in the car – even if sometimes my mileage was cut short by circumstance.

In the end I guess that the rookie season thing is a bit overrated. When we come to F1 we all have years of racing under out belt and the ambitions are the same as in all the series below, because if you don't succeed there you don't make it to F1.