Stoffel Vandoorne · Biography

On 3 April 2016, at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Stoffel Vandoorne raced in Formula One for the first time. McLaren called him up to replace Fernando Alonso, who had been injured in a crash in Australia. The Belgian qualified twelfth, ahead of team-mate Jenson Button, and finished tenth, which earned him a point on his debut. He was born on 26 March 1992 in the province of West Flanders. He arrived in Bahrain as the 2015 GP2 champion, and six years later he would win the Formula E world title with Mercedes.

From karting to single-seaters

He started out in Belgian karting. He won the national KF2 title in 2008 and finished second in the CIK-FIA KF2 World Cup in 2009. That same year he won the RACB steering wheel, a contest run by the Belgian federation whose prize money helped pay for his move into cars. He made his car racing debut in the F4 Eurocup 1.6 in 2010 and won it at the first attempt, with five wins and five poles from fourteen races. In 2011 he drove for KTR in the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup, where he finished fifth, and in the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC, where he was third with eight podiums.

Titles in Formula Renault and GP2

In 2012 he moved to Josef Kaufmann Racing and became Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup champion, with four wins, six poles and a ten-point margin over Daniil Kvyat. In 2013 he stepped up to Formula Renault 3.5 with Fortec, won four races and finished runner-up to Kevin Magnussen. In 2014 McLaren named him its third driver, a job he combined with a GP2 campaign at ART Grand Prix. In his first year in the series he won four races and finished second behind Jolyon Palmer. He stayed with ART in 2015 and won the GP2 title with seven wins, sixteen podiums and 341.5 points, 108 more than Alexander Rossi.

Japan and Formula One with McLaren

With no Formula One seat available for 2016, McLaren and Honda sent him to Japan's Super Formula series with the Dandelion team. He won two races there and finished fourth overall. In 2017 he took the second McLaren-Honda seat alongside Alonso. He scored points in Hungary, Malaysia and Singapore and ended the year sixteenth with 13 points, four fewer than his team-mate. In 2018, with the team on Renault power, he again finished sixteenth, with 12 points, and McLaren did not keep him for the following year. His Formula One record was 42 Grand Prix entries, 41 starts and 26 points.

F1 reserve duties and endurance racing

After losing his race seat he stayed involved in Formula One. He was a Mercedes simulator driver in 2019 and a reserve in 2020, the year he drove for the team at the young drivers' test in Abu Dhabi. Between 2020 and 2022 he was also available to McLaren as a reserve. In 2023 he became Aston Martin's reserve and simulator driver, a role he shared with Felipe Drugovich and kept through 2025. In endurance racing he finished third at the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours with SMP Racing. He was LMP2 runner-up in the World Endurance Championship in 2021 with Jota. He then served as a Peugeot reserve in 2023 before contesting the full 2024 championship in the 9X8 alongside Nico Müller and Loïc Duval.

Formula E: from HWA to the title with Mercedes

He made his Formula E debut in 2018-19 with HWA Racelab, the outfit that paved the way for Mercedes' arrival in the series. Partnered by Gary Paffett, he finished sixteenth with one podium and one pole. In 2019-20, racing for Mercedes-Benz EQ, he won the final race of the calendar in Berlin and finished runner-up. In 2020-21 he won the second race in Rome and placed ninth. In 2021-22 he won in Monaco, took eight podiums and wrapped up the drivers' world title in Seoul with 213 points, with Nyck de Vries as his team-mate.

DS Penske, Maserati and Jaguar

For 2022-23 he left Mercedes for DS Penske, where his team-mate was Jean-Éric Vergne. He finished eleventh that year and tenth in 2023-24, with one podium. In 2024-25 he drove for Maserati MSG Racing alongside Jake Hughes and finished fourteenth. Without a race seat for 2025-26, he joined Jaguar TCS Racing as reserve driver in October 2025. Jaguar named him António Félix da Costa’s team-mate for the first championship of the Gen4 era, replacing Mitch Evans, in November 2026.