Spa Francorchamps GP2 race report

27/08/2013

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Comma sponsored Jolyon Palmer bounced back from disappointment in the GP2 feature race at the daunting Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium on Saturday, August 24th to earn a valuable points-scoring sixth place on Sunday 25th in the sprint race.

Practice and qualifying:

Spa's notoriously changeable Ardennes weather produced a damp but drying track for official practice, making it difficult for Jolyon to find an ideal set up for fast times over the 4.35 mile circuit. It left him in 21st place at the end of the session, with plenty for him and the Carlin team technicians to ponder before the 30 minute qualifying shoot-out, which proved to be one of the closest and most competitive of the season to date.

Happily, Jolyon was in the mix right from the outset. With less than a second covering the top thirteen drivers at the close of proceedings, Jolyon was well pleased to qualify seventh, just over 0.7 seconds adrift of pole position winner Sam Bird and three grid places ahead of his Brazilian team mate Felipe Nasr.

The races:

Living up to his reputation for fearless overtaking, Jolyon had already made up two places by the end of the first lap and was settling nicely into his race when an incident brought out the safety car. At this point, his team mate had also improved his race position and was running sixth, immediately behind Jolyon, but after the re-start, Nasr made a rather ambitious move on Jolyon at the La Source hairpin, eliminating himself on the spot and spinning Jolyon so badly that he was in 19th place by the time he re-joined the fray.

Thereafter, it was a matter of battling for places wherever possible, but the opportunities were few and Jolyon was bitterly disappointed to finish 15th behind race winner Sam Bird and be left wondering what might have been. Scrutinising what had been, the stewards subsequently penalised Nasr five grid places for Sunday's sprint race.

Starting from the eighth row, Jolyon was true to his form throughout the sprint event, and despite taking a clout by Dani Clos, scythed his way impressively from 15th on the grid to sixth place at the chequered flag, with Britain's James Calado scoring his maiden GP2 victory.

With six races remaining on the GP2 calendar, Jolyon lies eighth in the championship table. The next two encounters are at Monza, Italy (on September 7th/8th) a circuit where Jolyon has a double-winning Formula 2 record from his debut appearance at the historic Autodromo in 2010.