It was a difficult start to the 2017 F1 season for Renault Sport Formula 1 Team driver Jolyon Palmer, who was only able to complete ten laps across both Friday practice sessions.
A technical problem caused by a split CV boot, kept the Brit back in the garage for the majority of FP1 having completed just six laps, before it was replaced by engineers to allow him back out on track in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, the day went from bad to worse for Palmer, when he crashed out of proceedings in FP2, having lost the rear of the RS17 at the final corner, before hitting the wall with just half an hour of the session gone. There was too much damage for Palmer to continue, and that brought the Brit’s already limited first day of running to an early end, having only managed to add four more laps to his tally.
“Sadly it was a pretty short day for me in terms of time in the car. We had a minor technical issue in the first session then I had an off in FP2, which unlike FP1 required more than one part replacing.
“I’m not sure exactly what happened and we’ll be having a close look at the data. I feel for my crew as they have a decent amount of work to do.”
Despite the disastrous start to the weekend however, the Brit is still looking forward to getting back into the action tomorrow, when he hopes to enjoy much more time out on track and catch up on Friday’s lost running.
“Albert Park is a pretty cool circuit and even more so in these latest cars. I’m hopeful of more track time tomorrow, but we’ll be on the back foot heading into qualifying after only ten laps today.”