Buoyed by the best performance of his rookie F1 season a week earlier in Hungary, Jolyon Palmer continued to set the pace for Renault Sport Formula One Team at Hockenheim today (30 July) as he secured 14th spot on the starting grid for tomorrow’s German Grand Prix.

On a day that dawned under sunny skies, Jolyon made the most of the final practice session to log plenty of laps behind the wheel of his Renault R.S.16 as he assessed Pirelli’s super-soft, soft and medium-compound tyres, winding up 16th-quickest.

The 25-year-old Southwater racer then dug deep in the first part of qualifying to advance through to the second phase of the session for the second time in his fledgling F1 career. A valiant effort on his final Q2 run saw Jolyon improve his best lap time by some six tenths-of-a-second, and following a brace of penalties ahead, he will line up 14th on the grid for tomorrow’s race, which is set to begin at 14:00 local time.

Jolyon Palmer, #30, R.S.16-04

Free practice 3: P16, 1:17.473

Qualifying: P14, 1:16.665

Jolyon said: “It’s good to be back in Q2! The car is improving overall – there is clear progress. We were close to Q2 at Silverstone, we should have been there in Hungary and now here we are at Hockenheim. I’m looking forward to the race; we had better pace in Budapest but started lower there than here, in P17. I was driving pretty well in Hungary bar one corner, so if I can drive well around the Hockenheimring for every corner then I should have a good chance to score points.”

Alan Permane, Renault Sport Formula One Team Trackside Operations Director added: “Qualifying was a step in the right direction. We always want more, but it was good for Jo to get through to Q2 – especially with the lap times being so very close here. If we can unlock just a little more pace from the car, we’ll continue to work our way up the order so it’s been a positive day. We seem to have better long-run tyre performance even than in Hungary on the same compounds of Pirelli’s tyres, so that bodes well for us. It looks like the weather will continue to be dry, so there’s good scope and potential to climb through the field.”