Stoffel Vandoorne says his motivation for his first home Formula 1 race in Belgium thi💧s 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.

Vandoorne’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 performanceꦐ to the McLaren team.

Vandoorne made a breakthrough in Hungary before the summer break, scoring his first point of t𒅌he year, and arriv🌳ed 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 𒐪grid drops set to leave Vandoorne starting at the back of the field.

“It doesn’t affect my motivation. It’s maybe a shame it happens in Spa but it is the way it 🌃is,” Vandoorne saidಞ.

“The penalties are inevitable considering all of the failur💞es we had at the beginning of the season. It was always going to be like th🎃is.

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

Vandoor♔ne got his first taste of Spa as a McLaren F1 driver on Friday in practice, and was pleased with how the MCL32 car performedꩵ.

“The feeling was quite posi💦tive as usual. The car handling felt quite good,” Vandoorne said.

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

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