6 H. of Fuji - Stoffel Vandoorne (Peugeot) : "It's not a complete unknown"

When did you learn you would be here this week-end ?

About one and a half / two weeks ago or something.

How happy are you to be back in Japan? 

I haven't been in Japan since before Covid actually, so it's been quite a while. And, obviously, I have some some good memories from here, racing in Super Formula. Last time I was here I was on pole position but I had a brake failure in the race so hopefully that will not happen this this time around. But I'm very excited for my first race with Peugeot.

What about your experience behind the wheel of the car?

I've been testing the car obviously, a little while ago now, in March at MotorLand Aragon. It is that the only test I did with a roll out. So it's not a complete unknown let's say because I've been racing in WEC before. So it's something that I'm kind of used to. Obviously ; times have changed, the Hypercar class and the WEC in general has attracted a lot of new manufacturers and and the racing in Hypercar is now more competitive than it's ever been. So yeah I'm very glad to have this first opportunity.

Do you feel you're short of mileage in the car ?

You always want more. But I'm just glad to get on with it. I don't think there will be any big surprises of course. I'll need to accustom to the car again a little bit in the beginning but I'm lucky that I've already driven the car and that I know what to expect. I don't expect any any big issues on on that side. I'm I'm more kind of focusing on making sure I do all the procedures correct, making sure I don't make any silly mistakes. I think that's kind of the easiest thing to do when you get thrown in. I'll try and avoid this weekend.

Did you have time to squeeze in a simulator session to get used to some of those systems ?

I've been in the sim last week before coming here, which was very good and valuable, especially to just get back into the into the steering wheel all the buttons the procedures that we're going through the kind of the the main switch changes that will be expected from me during the race. You know I'm switching between quite a lot of cars lately. Formula E, Aston Martin F1, and now the Peugeot. Every team has kind of a little bit of a different layout with the buttons and a little bit of a different way of how to operate it. But in general they're you know they're all quite close and they all kind of have the same meaning. So that makes it a lot easier to get used to it. So especially to have a little refresher in the sim before coming here was good.

Is having to adapt to a new car every time an additional difficulty?

I think it's actually good to combine different cars because you learn different skill sets for each car that you drive. It just develops your general skill set let's say whenever you jump from from one to another.

The management of the trafic than in an LMP1 or in LMP2 don't you think ?

For sure it will be different because I did LMP2, where you just have the GTs as trafic. When I did couple of races with SMP in LMP1, it was an era where the speed of the LMP1 was so superior to anything else that it was a different way of managing trafic. I think now with the the Hypercars, GTs and LMP2 cars, they're a bit closer together so I think it's a bit more tricky probably to make your way through trafic. And sometimes you maybe have to take different kind of risks. The practice session will definitely be very helpful to see what it's like.

Even more in this very specific third sector...

These cars, in slow corners, they're not that superior to the GT cars. So it's kind of hard to make it easy in in the last sector for example with all the twisty corners. Obviously we have a power advantage and especially in high speed we have a bigger advantage to those cars, but compared to before it won't be such a big difference. 

Given the team's results over the last couple of races does that give you a lot of optimism ?

It's great to see. Obviously I've been following very close with the team the progress they've been making over the last couple of races. And they managed to get their first podium in Monza last time out. It's great obviously. I don't know what we can expect this weekend, and about the weather first of all. I think that's going to be probably a little bit of a question mark tomorrow. But it's great to see the progress and I think we just need to stay humbled and try and have a clean race.