McLaren's rookie driver Stoffel Vandoorne will be racing on a lot of new circuits in his debut season in Formula One, but the Bahrain International Circuit isn't one of them!

This weekend's third race of the season will mark the one-year anniversary of Stoffel's first Grand Prix, which was a highly creditable one. He duly scored a point on his Formula 1 debut and he will be striving for another points finish again this weekend.

Not one to make rash promises or predictions, the young Belgian racer is hoping his efforts will be successful, after all, Bahrain has been a happy hunting ground for him in GP2 where he won on his series debut three years ago.

“I have lots of good memories from the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend in 2016. We're a year on now, I'm a full-time McLaren-Honda driver, and I've already gained a lot more experience in the past 12 months, so of course my aim is to work hard and improve every time I arrive at a grand prix. This year will be difficult for us, but we'll be racing hard as always,” he said.

“The most important thing for me is mileage, and the weather will surely be better in Bahrain than it was in Shanghai, so I'm hoping to do as many laps as possible over the weekend. It helps that I know this track well and I won there twice in 2015 in GP2, so I'm already comfortable with the layout and therefore it's a case of building on what I already know.”

“We were always expecting a difficult weekend in China, and I don't know if it will get a lot better in Bahrain – it's only one week later and there's obviously a limit to how many changes we can apply in that time, but we'll do our best as usual. The car is definitely improving and both Fernando and I feel confident and competitive, especially in the corners, so we'll have to wait and see what's possible at this track.”

“Bahrain is one of McLaren-Honda's three home Grands Prix, Silverstone and Suzuka being the other two. As such, it would be fitting it we could score our first points of the year there, and you can be well sure that we'll be doing our best to do just that.”