Jolyon Palmer endured a disappointing German Grand Prix today (31 July), as a superb start behind the wheel of his Renault Sport F1 R.S.16 was unfortunately undone by opening lap misfortune that consigned him to a race towards the back of the field.

Beginning from 14th on the grid on used Pirelli super-soft rubber, Jolyon anticipated the lights to perfection and made a great start to gain three places to 11th, but then locked his brakes going into Turn Two defending from Fernando Alonso, which badly flat-spotted his tyres.

That subsequently caused further locking and light contact with Felipe Massa’s Williams as the Brazilian found himself backed up at the Turn Six hairpin, sending the British F1 rookie pits-bound to change tyres and dropping him to the tail of the field.

As Jolyon pitted, the team thought the front wing was undamaged so simply changed tyres as he switched to a new set of softs. However, it soon became apparent that the wing was indeed damaged – and costing the former GP2 Series Champion half-a-second a lap through degraded aerodynamic performance.

Jolyon had to soldier on throughout the 24-lap stint until great pit work by the Renault crew saw them replace the front wing and fit a new set of super-soft tyres in just nine seconds.

Now with a well-balanced car underneath him once more, the 25-year-old Southwater racer chipped away at the sizeable deficit ahead, hauling in and overtaking both Rio Haryanto and Felipe Nasr. A final stop for used super-softs followed, but despite pushing hard and setting what was comfortably the team’s fastest lap of the grand prix, the absence of any major drama ahead restricted him to just 19th position at the chequered flag.

Jolyon Palmer, #30, R.S.16-04: Started P14, Finished P19

Jolyon said: “Everything was really positive coming into this event and I had a good start in the race, so it’s a disappointing result today. I had a big lock-up in Turn Two and massively flat-spotted my tyres. I could barely see where I was going because of the vibrations, and I tipped a Williams whilst trying to hold on from one of the McLarens. This damaged my front wing, which we changed at the second pit-stop. After that, there wasn’t much I could do. It’s a shame but we can take the positives, put the rest behind us and focus on the second half of the season.”

Fred Vasseur, Renault Sport Formula One Team Principal added: “Despite not getting the result we wanted today, there are a lot of positives to take from this weekend. We reached Q2 in qualifying with Jolyon and showed that we are able to regularly fight with Haas and Toro Rosso during races, which wasn’t the case in previous events. Both drivers fought hard today. Jolyon made a super start but unfortunately flat-spotted his tyres so wasn’t able to deliver on the potential shown from his qualifying. We’ll come back after the break fighting.”