Mercedes and McLaren share spare drivers in 2020: Chance of Vandoorne's return?
General
- GPblog.com
As in 2019, McLaren will depend on the reserve drivers of another team in 2020. Where McLaren entered into a partnership with Renault in 2019, from 2020 there will be a partnership with Mercedes.
McLaren-Mercedes
According to the often well-informed Racefans.net, the reserve drivers of Mercedes will also be available for McLaren in 2020. Among the reserve drivers are Stoffel Vandoorne and Esteban Gutierrez. Vandoorne is of course one of McLaren's protegé, as the Belgian already drove 41 races for the team from Woking.
However, the two parties did not split up very well, because Vandoorne felt disadvantaged in the collaboration with Fernando Alonso. In addition, Vandoorne will also drive in Formula E in 2020, so the Belgian will not always be able to join McLaren to help out there. which is is different for Gutierrez.
Other arrangements
The former driver of Haas and Sauber is also under contract as a reserve driver at Mercedes and could be used by McLaren. With eight races in ten weeks a driver can miss a race if he runs into the coronavirus. So a reserve driver is certainly desirable for every Formula 1 team.
McLaren isn't the only team that has a partnership when it comes to reserve drivers. In fact, Antonio Giovinazzi is one of the reserve drivers for Ferrari and Sebastien Buemi will have to jump in for both Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri if a driver should fail.