Renault Sport F1 Team driver Jolyon Palmer had a productive first practice session at Suzuka for this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix, completing 22 laps. The second session saw extensive rainfall, meaning a delayed start to running, and only limited track action thereafter. 

Jolyon Palmer, #30, R.S.17-03
Free practice 1: P15, 1:31.757, 22 laps 
Free practice 2: P8, no time set, 1 lap

Jolyon said: “There was a lot of traffic during FP1, but we were able to try different set-ups and I think we found a good direction. It was nice to get some dry running because we expect it to be wet again in FP3. In FP2 the grip level actually felt quite good despite the water, but we just decided to save the tyres because it could be wet again on Saturday, so we will keep them for qualifying.”

Nick Chester, Chassis Techical Director said: “The morning session was good today. We put a comprehensive programme together for FP1 because we knew we were going to have a wet FP2. We did a lot of work on set-up specific to this track, there are a lot of high speed corners so it’s a bit of a different track to optimise for. We completed tests on both cars, and it has given us good knowledge for where to run the car in the dry. For FP2, we wanted to try a little bit more of a wet set-up, but really it was too wet, so we just did the one lap to see where the rivers were and that was it.”