Stoffel Vandoorne says McLaren-Honda is braced for another difficult weekend in Russia, and believes it should focus on maximising the available track time.
Vandoorne was plagued by problems at the preceding round in Bahrain, limiting his on-track appearances, and was unable to start the race due to a water pressure issue.
Vandoorne is wary that McLaren will be on the back foot at the venue where he clinched the GP2 title in 2015, but is sure progress can still be made.
“As I’ve said before, on tracks like this where straight-line speed is important, we know we’ll already be slightly on the back-foot heading into the weekend,” said Vandoorne.
“Our focus should definitely be on maximising our track time and working on reliability.
“If we can have a clean weekend from that point of view and no issues with the car, it will give us the best chance to find performance for the race, and we’ll give it our best shot with the package we have.”
Vandoorne added that McLaren has been boosted by its performance during last week’s in-season test, after he logged 81 laps on his day in the MCL32.
“After a difficult couple of weeks, the last day of the Bahrain test was very encouraging, both for me and for the whole team,” he commented.
“It was a boost we needed and provided us with a lot of useful information about the direction we are taking the whole package in.
“So we go to Sochi with a better feeling than we had on Sunday night after a disappointing race.”
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