Ex-McLaren Formula 1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne admits his debut World Endurance Championship outing in the Six Hours of Spa will be "all about learning" the series and LMP1 machinery.
The Belgian, who will be sharing the #11 BR Engineering BR1-AER with Mikhail Aleshin and fellow Vitaly Petrov, replaces former McLaren F1 team-mate Jenson Button, who has stepped away from WEC owing to a desire to spend more time at home and the lack of opportunities for privateer LMP1 outfits to beat the all-conquering Toyotas.
Speaking to Motorsport Week ahead of this weekend's Spa event, Vandoorne admits "everything will be a big challenge to start off", and is looking to "just stay out of trouble".
“I think everything will be a big challenge to start off, especially the traffic, how to manage that, but also getting up to speed with the car in such a short time,” he said.
“It will be very challenging so it’s going to be important to get a lot of mileage this weekend, to stay out of trouble and try and do the best we can. I just need to get a lot of experience here this weekend.
“It’s all about learning, all about getting the mileage on board and deal with traffic, get up to speed with the regulations, endurance racing as well, sharing the car with my teammates.
“Pitstops are challenging as well, changing the driver as quickly as possible, and that’s going to be part of the learning curve as well this weekend.”
Vandoorne, who has made one previous sportscar appearance sharing a McLaren 650S GT3 with Frédéric Vervisch in 2013, explained that the speed of the LMP1 machinery is something he is looking forward to.
“It will be something I haven’t felt for a little bit. I think compared to Formula E, it’s quite different. These cars are probably the closest to Formula 1 in terms of speed, so yeah, it will be nice to find that feeling.”
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