Sepang GP2 race report

26/03/2013

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Comma-sponsored Jolyon Palmer got his GP2 campaign off to a mightily impressive start with two eye-catching performances in the opening rounds of the 2013 championship at Sepang, Malaysia on March 23/24.

Driving this season for the Carlin team, 22 year old Palmer from Horsham, East Sussex, had shown good single-lap speed and race pace in pre-season testing, and was quietly confident of translating his winter work into solid championship points. But in the crucial opening exchanges of 2013, Jolyon was compromised in qualifying for Saturday's 'Feature' race with a sticking throttle problem, and found himself stranded at the back of the grid in 22nd starting place.

Undeterred, Jolyon set about reducing the deficit in the race, making up an astonishing ten places on the opening lap, and improving a further two places to be in a points scoring position by the end of lap five. While everyone else made for the pits and their mandatory tyre change, Jolyon continued to stay out on hard compound rubber, and by lap 11 had taken the lead by seven seconds over the second place car. Pitting for his own tyre change on lap 20, he re-joined the race to claim sixth place at the chequered flag, his pacey long-run early strategy having rewarded him with a further four place improvement once the true running order was re-established.

"I made a great start and had a good first two laps and then I just focused on pushing as hard as possible," said Jolyon. "We had a good strategy and the pit stop was perfect. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's 'Sprint' race and starting from third." (In GP2, the starting grid positions for the 'Sprint' race are determined by reversing the order of the top eight finishers in the 'Feature' race).

But lightning struck again, as Jolyon stalled on the grid on the green flag lap and was obliged to start last from the pit lane. Same situation, same task, which Jolyon set about with a will. After five laps, he was up to P17, and he kept stealing places until with five laps to go, he was in P12. Still not finished, he claimed a further three places to finish ninth, just one place out of the points. (GP2 'Sprint' race points are awarded only to the top eight finishers)

"Unfortunately I stalled at the start so had to start from the pit lane. The pace was very strong though and I managed to pass a lot of cars and finish P9. I think one more lap and I would have been in the points. It's good to know that if I had started P3 we could have won the race comfortably. It's frustrating to have dropped points, but we are definitely in good shape for the next round in Bahrain though."

In what must be something of a landmark in the annals of GP2, Jolyon improved his position in the two races no fewer than 33 times during the weekend. From seemingly impossible circumstances, he conjured sufficient points to establish himself well in the championship hunt in eighth place with 10 events and 20 races still to go. Watch this space!