They could have taken a punt on Stoffel Vandoorne again. He’s still a very good driver who didn’t have the car to show what he was capable of and he was up against one of the best drivers of the modern era. A Merc reserve driver too so might have got a wee sweetener from Merc too!
Have to disagree with all these other choices;
1) Remember when the decision was made - give or take a year ago, not knowing what this year would look like calendar wise or sport wise - they had to go with experience, two relatively inexperienced drivers in a team hoping to make another step up the grid - going cheap on the 2nd driver would have sent out wrong image imo
2) Think of what Lando would have thought - with DR coming in - yep really have to put my marker down over the winter and step preparations up for the competition (which of course it looks like he did well) - with an in-experienced driver coming instead this could have gone a completely different way (not saying this is a definite, but certainly a possibility)
3) Sponsors might have been even more difficult to sign with two relatively raw recruits leading such a big team
I am stil concerned about DR, I thought he was getting on top of the car a few races ago, but he seems to have gone backwards again (albeit he was very unlucky on Sunday after the fantastic start he got), McLaren are desperate for him to regularly score decent points otherwise Ferrari are going to get 3rd in the constructors with ease
I really hope McLaren have a few decent developments coming over the summer, because it seems like they are dropping further and further back on race pace compared to the front two and into the clutches of AM /Ferrari and a few others
