Jolyon Palmer produced an excellent performance in qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps today (27 August), battling back from a troubled opening day to secure the best starting slot of his Formula 1 career to-date with 13^th position on the grid for the Belgian Grand Prix.

After encountering technical difficulties in both free practice sessions on Friday, Jolyon lapped 18^th-quickest in FP3 behind the wheel of his Renault Sport Formula One Team R.S.16, making a spectacular save at Fagnes Chicane along the way.

On the super-soft Pirelli rubber for the first part of qualifying like the majority of his rivals, the British rookie pulled a superb last-gasp effort out of the bag to progress through to Q2 for the second grand prix weekend in a row, lapping just a tenth-of-a-second adrift of more experienced team-mate Kevin Magnussen in an encouraging showing for the Enstone-based outfit.

In hot and sunny conditions, Jolyon’s final run was good enough to secure 14^th position – despite losing three tenths with a small mistake as he pushed too hard at the Bus-Stop chicane – which will become 13^th with a penalty for Esteban Gutierrez just ahead.

That marks the best grid slot of the 25-year-old Southwater racer’s F1 career to-date, and he will begin tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix at 14:00 local time (13:00 BST) in confident mood.

Jolyon Palmer, #30, R.S.16-02

Free practice 3: P18, 1:50.241

Qualifying: P13, 1:48.888

Jolyon said: “I am pretty happy with that performance. It’s the second race weekend running that I’ve been in Q2, but we can be especially pleased with this one as yesterday was tough and we turned it around. Having two in a row shows that Hockenheim wasn’t a one-off and we are making genuine progress.

“There are a lot of unknowns for the race tomorrow as the temperatures are sky-high and tyre degradation is worse than expected, but we have some advantages. Everyone in the top ten is starting on used tyres, whereas we have a new set in-hand. I’m now really looking forward to the race and trying to crack the top ten if we can.”

Nick Chester, Renault Sport Formula One Team Technical Director added: “The team put in a very good performance; it was the first time we have got two cars through to Q2 since Australia, and it is our strongest starting position of the season so far. It shows that we’ve made progress with the car and the package now seems to be working well.

“We looked competitive in Hungary before the summer break, and then again at Hockenheim so we are showing genuine steps forward. This weekend, we started relatively slowly but all the major improvements have come from making adjustments to the balance throughout the sessions. We have been methodical in our approach and the performance has come from making relatively small changes.”