Jolyon Palmer felt the opening day of practice at the Yas Marina Circuit went ‘pretty well’ as the Renault Sport F1 Team begin their final weekend with their troublesome RS16.
The British driver, who was confirmed to be staying with the Enstone-based team for 2017 during the Brazilian Grand Prix two weeks ago, ended sixteenth fastest in the first session on Friday, before improving by almost three seconds in the second, although this improvement only meant finishing fifteenth on the timing screens.
Palmer feels the start of the weekend has been positive, and believes the set-up of the car only needs some fine tuning to have a good weekend, with the 2014 GP2 Series champion aiming for only his second top ten finish of the season on Sunday to add to his tenth place finish during the Malaysian Grand Prix at the beginning of October.
“Today went pretty well,” said Palmer. “We have a good balance and all we have to work on is minimising the tyre degradation with a heavy fuel load.
“I feel that we’re in a pretty decent place with the car; there’s still some fine-tuning to be done, however we’re in the right ballpark.”
