Despite being eliminated once more from qualifying at the first hurdle, Jolyon Palmer felt more at ease driving his Renault Sport F1 RS16 on Saturday after struggling with it on Friday.
The British driver missed out on progressing into the second phase by the tiniest of margins, with just 0.015 seconds separating himself from the Haas of Romain Grosjean, who made it through to Q2 at Palmer’s expense.
Palmer’s attention now turns to Sunday’s race around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, and is hopeful of moving forward as he aims to maximise the use of the upgraded Renault power unit he is using for the first time this weekend, and has one eye on scoring his first points in Formula 1.
“I’m happy with the lap I did and the car’s much more to my liking today,” said Palmer. “It was unfortunate that the track was getting slippery as I had another lap of fuel left in the car.
“It was so close out there; 0.015secs is absolutely nothing! The good thing is the car is still improving and my set-up was night and day from yesterday.
“There are no zebra crossings here so I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s possible in the race.”
