Jolyon Palmer’s maiden British Grand Prix came to a frustrating end with retirement on lap 38, as his Renault R.S.16 suffered a suspected gearbox problem.
A safety car start after a typically British summertime downpour ensured that the pack would start on full wet tyres, with Jolyon lining up P18.
When racing did get underway on lap six, half of the field immediately pitted to fit the Pirelli intermediate tyre and the other half, including Jolyon, stayed out an extra lap before making the switch.
As the order settled down, the 25-year-old emerged P17, just ahead of team-mate Kevin Magnussen, and set off after Romain Grosjean ahead – closing to within a couple of seconds of the Haas man as the time came to change to dry tyres.
Lap 16’s stop for those white-striped Pirelli medium’s brought frustration, however, as Jolyon was released by the Renault Sport Formula One Team crew with only three of four wheels fixed to the car.
Given the green light to exit his pit box, Jolyon made it 10 metres down the pit lane where the mechanics then had to pull the car back into place, at a cost of over 20 seconds, before the right-rear could be reattached and the #30 R.S.16 sent on its way.
The delay was compounded by a 10 second stop/go penalty for that unsafe release by the team – the journey in and out of the pit lane, including the penalty itself, costing Jolyon a further 40 seconds in total.
The time lost shuffled Jolyon down the order and into a position to be lapped by the race leaders where the Renault man was obliged to obey blue flags, slowing to let them by and losing further chunks of time.
Retirement on lap 38 compounded a disappointing day.
Jolyon said: “Today wasn’t the result I wanted from my home race. It was going reasonably well on the wet tyres at the beginning of the race.
“Things were looking up: I got ahead of Kevin and I was catching Romain Grosjean. When I pitted for slick tyres, I had a green light to go but the rear right wasn’t finished and I’d already started to leave the box. From then on I lost about a minute and then received a 10 seconds penalty for unsafe release.
“What happened was unfortunate but it could happen to anyone up and down the pitlane. We retired the car as there was a strange feeling with the gearbox, more as a precaution as at that stage we were two laps down. We’ll now investigate the problem thoroughly. I’m looking forward to the test this week and focusing on the next race weekend.”
Fred Vasseur, Team Principal
“Not the best Grand Prix in our history. It was a difficult race for us and we will be looking into what caused a double retirement. Both Kevin and Jolyon had been driving well until then, but our pace was not strong enough today. We are testing next week and will be using that to ensure we are back on target for the next race.”
Jolyon Palmer, #30, R.S.16-02: Started P18, DNF