Nürburgring GP2 race report

15/07/2013

High Quality Jpeg (53.77 KB) High Quality Jpeg (0.58 MB) High Quality Jpeg (152.12 KB)

A rueful Jolyon Palmer put a brave face on his weekend in the Eifel mountains, but the German round of the international GP2 feeder series to Formula 1 is one he will no doubt wish to banish from memory. Starting from eleventh on the grid for Saturday's Feature race, he threaded his car unscathed through a first lap melée on the pits straight to be in a promising fourth position when he stopped for his mandatory tyre change on lap 10. Sending Jolyon back into the fray, the team realised that the wrong tyres had been fitted to his Comma-sponsored car, and called him back in to rectify the error. After leaving the pits again Jolyon set his fastest lap of the race on his first full flying lap, with a 1:43:361. He followed this up with a purple first sector to display pace not indicative of the final result. The second stop ultimately prevented him making the most of his speed, and he was classified a hapless 24th at the end.

Staring from the back of the grid in Sunday's Sprint Race, Jolyon scythed through the field to be lying 16th after just two laps, once again demonstrating his prowess at overtaking. With the safety car making an appearance on lap three, he improved his position to 13th by the half way stage, and boldly overtaking Julian Leal and Marcus Ericsson on the final lap, was classified 11th, just one place out of the points at the chequered flag.

"I started 24th and finished 11th, so overall I'm fairly happy," said Jolyon in a post-race interview. "Unfortunately we only had used prime tyres to use after yesterday, so I had to save the tyres all through the race. It's a shame we couldn't fight for points but considering the circumstances I'm not too unhappy with today."