Stoffel Vandoorne says his motivation for ⛎his first home Formula 1 race in Belgium this weekend is not affected by his power unit grid penalties that are near-certain to resign him to a final row start at Spa on Sunday.

Vandoo🔯rne’s first half-season in F1 as a full-time driver has been hindered by a number of issues with Honda’s power unit, which has failed to offer either reliability or performance to the McLaren team.

Vandoorne made a breakthrough in Hungary before the summer break, 🍬scoring his first point of the year, and arri🍰ved in Belgium for his first home grand prix hopeful of a repeat.

However, the odds will be stacked against him from the very start, with 65 places worth of 🌺grid drops set to leꦐave Vandoorne starting at the back of the field.

“It doesn’t affect my motivation. It’s maybe a shame it happens inꦐ Spa but it is the way it is,” Vandoorneꦬ said.

“The penal🎉ties are inevitable considering all of the failures we had at the beginning of the season. It♔ was always going to be like this.

“So we need to think about the 🐟future and ho💜pefully it helps in other grands prix.”

Vandoorne got his first taste of Spa as a McLaren F1 driver on👍 Friday in practice, and was pleased🍃 with how the MCL32 car performed.

“The feeling was quite positive as usual. The🌌 car handling 🐬felt quite good,” Vandoorne said.

“From my position this weekend we know are starting last, so we were having a bit of a different run programme on Friday, concentraꦡting more on the high fuel runs, setting up the car for the race.

“That’s where our main focus is for this weekend so hopeful🐎ly, maybe with a bit of weather we can still 🐼have a good result.”