Even though he only finished Free Practice One fifteenth fastest, Renault Sport Formula 1 Team driver Jolyon Palmer felt that he and the team ‘found a good direction’ with the car.
Much of Free Practice Two was lost due to heavy rain, but most cars managed to get out for at least one lap, with only five setting a time. Palmer and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg both did one lap before coming back into the pits.
Palmer was happy with his pace in Free Practice One but attributes his overall time to traffic that made it difficult to put a strong lap together.
“There was a lot of traffic during FP1,” commented the Brit.
“But we were able to try different set-ups and I think we found a good direction.”
The decision to only go for one lap each in the rain was in order to save sets of wet tyres, as it is forecasted that there will be more rain in tomorrow’s Free Practice Three and Qualifying session. This also means that Free Practice One is likely to be the only session where the team can look at data for longer runs and race pace before the race itself on Sunday.
“It was nice to get some dry running because we expect it to be wet again in Free Practice 3. In Free Practice 2 the grip level actually felt quite good despite the water, but we just decided to save the tyres because it could be wet again on Saturday, so we will keep them for qualifying.”
