Marko slams Vandoorne: "Not quick enough for F1"

Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko has hit out at departing McLaren driver Stoffel Vandoorne, saying that the Belgian is not quick enough to be competing in F1 when asked if he'd be offered a Toro Rosso seat.

After initially impressing on his debut in 2016, scoring points for McLaren in Bahrain after being flown over from the Super Formula on a very short notice, it's been downhill for Vandoorne. An iffy 2017 campaign was followed up with a very painful 2018-season, which has seen him being out-qualified by his teammate Fernando Alonso all 16 times so far. Vandoorne is the only driver who has yet to beat his teammate in qualifying.

When asked if the 26-year-old would be in contention for a Toro Rosso seat next season, Marko was quite firm in his answer.

"We will not take Stoffel," he told Belgian news outlet RTBF.

That's not a nice thing to say, is it? Some think that Vandoorne is suffering from the same McLaren-virus from which Sergio Perez and Kevin Magnussen also suffered earlier in their careers. They looked bad at McLaren, and revived their careers at other teams when given a second chance. Will Vandoorne get the same treatment, or will we never see him again on the F1 grid?