Jolyon Palmer will miss qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix after a crack was found in the chassis of his RS16 after final practice, although the cause of the issue has yet to be disclosed.
The Renault Sport Formula 1 Team racer had been hopeful of making it through to the second segment of qualifying on Saturday, but will instead start at the back of the grid while his team build a car around a new chassis, and with not enough time in between sessions for this to be completed, Palmer will sit on the sidelines during qualifying.
Palmer, the 2014 GP2 Series champion, had finished fourteenth fastest in final practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Saturday morning, four places and four-tenths of a second faster than team-mate Kevin Magnussen. On Friday, Palmer had finished twenty-first in the opening session before improving to sixteenth in the second session, and with an improvement again on Saturday morning, hopes were high of a good qualifying session in Mexico.
