Jolyon Palmer continued to endure a painful weekend at Albert Park with the British racer setting the slowest time of qualifying on Saturday.
The Renault Sport Formula 1 Team driver had a disastrous Friday after mechanical issues in first practice and a crash early in the second, and was more than two seconds away from advancing to Q2 during the qualifying session, and 3.269 seconds down on the pace team-mate Nico Hülkenberg showed in the same session on the same tyre.
Palmer felt uneasy with the set-up of his RS17, especially as he was able to go faster on supposedly slower tyres on Friday, and he is looking to see what wrong overnight in order to have a stronger performance during Sunday’s race.
“Today really didn’t go to plan,” said Palmer. “I didn’t have any grip and I struggled with the brakes so we need to know what went wrong. Yesterday the car felt much better and was faster on the soft tyres, with a much higher fuel load, so there’s something not quite right.
“It’s been pretty far from the weekend I wanted to start the season so far, but let’s see what happens in the race.”
