Renault Sport Formula One Team’s Jolyon Palmer struggled for race pace in today’s 57-lap Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit.
Jolyon started the race from tenth position on his qualifying super-soft tyres, changing to a new set of softs on lap 13 under the safety car and subsequently a set of scrubbed super-softs on lap 37. The 26-year-old Brit took the chequered flag 13th.
Jolyon Palmer, #30, R.S.17-01
Started P10, Finished P13
Jolyon said: “It was a tough race; I had a good fight with [Fernando] Alonso and [Daniil] Kvyat after the safety car bunched everyone up, but a couple of touches with Kvyat didn’t help things. I didn’t really have the pace to get further after that, and the degradation seemed to be more for us than the cars around. It made for a difficult evening, unfortunately, where we struggled with a lack of pace.”
Cyril Abiteboul, Renault Sport Formula One Team Managing Director, added: “Jolyon had a difficult grand prix, so we need to understand in detail why he struggled, especially after qualifying in the top ten for the first time yesterday. The most important aspect for us is to understand why there is such a difference between our Saturday qualifying performance and our Sunday race pace.
“Fortunately, this week’s test comes at a perfect time to further our understanding on the issues that are now well identified, as well as to test the first major upgrades of a season that will see a lot of progress and improvement.”