Bahrain International Circuit is a venue that has been good to Jolyon Palmer in the past, with a visit to the top step of the podium in the GP2 Series in 2014 to his name. Points are the target for this year’s visit to Sakhir.  

What can we expect from you in Bahrain?

I quite like the track and I have won there in the past so that definitely spurs me on after a couple of Grands Prix which have fallen short of expectations. I’ll jump in the car on Friday and be working with my crew to get the maximum possible from each session then we absolutely are targeting points from the race as we’ve seen the potential of the car; all I need is a clean weekend.

What are the challenges of Bahrain International Circuit?

There is a lot of track evolution as it is very sandy at the start of the weekend, and then the track gets more and more rubber down, so conditions change a lot. The weather is almost always sunny, but it can be quite windy, which can blow sand onto the track. The fact it’s a night race is pretty interesting. In terms of set-up, practice one and three are hard as they are a lot hotter than the race but there is a lot we can do in procedural terms, such as aero tests, and understanding this generation of car at this track.

There are a lot of straights so plenty of overtaking opportunities and it should make for a good race.

Do you expect a different weekend from Shanghai?

In many ways yes, especially with the weather! I’ll be very surprised if we have to fit the Wet or Intermediate tyres this weekend. With dry conditions there’s less chance of difficult circumstances like we saw in Shanghai so everything should be in our favour for a more straightforward race weekend and that’s what we need to get some points down.