By alley - Oct 4, 2017, 9:34 AM ET

I’m ready to lead McLaren - Vandoorne

Stoffel Vandoorne insists he is ready to lead McLaren next season if Fernando Alonso doesn't agree to a new contract with the team.

Alonso's future has been the subject of much speculation this year, with his current contract set to expire at the end of the season. The recent announcement that McLaren

will switch from Honda to Renault

power units in 2018 is expected to convince the Spaniard to stay, but Alonso has highlighted the gap between this weekend's race in Japan and the United States Grand Prix on October 22 as the time when he wants to finalize his plans.

"A hundred percent," Vandoorne told RACER when asked if he feels ready to lead the team if Alonso were to leave. "I think everything is going in the good direction. The team relies a lot on me, because I spend a lot of time in the factory as well with the aerodynamicists, in the simulator, with the other technical guys.

"So for sure [I feel ready to lead]. I mean, Fernando is not going to continue forever so how long he will stay in F1, if he will stay with us, I don't know. I'm just pushing from my side, not thinking too much about my teammate to be honest and to really trying to prepare for the future."

The switch to Renault power will see McLaren running the same power unit as Red Bull, and Vandoorne highlights the Malaysia Grand Prix winners as a good marker to try and get the better of in 2018.

"I hope we can [beat Red Bull], yes. How big a step of performance we will make next year is difficult to say. I think it will definitely be better and for sure Red Bull is a big benchmark for us, so I think it should be our aim to be very close with them but still we have to wait and see.

"It will already be a big step forward. On some circuits we will be close but I think we need to wait and see how we progress."