A puncture halted Jolyon Palmer’s practice run at the Circuit de Catalunya earlier today (13 May), but the 25-year-old responded well to finally set a representative lap time in the closing minutes of the second session. 

Jolyon sat out Free Practice 1 – Barcelona representing one of five scheduled weekends where he will hand over Friday morning driving duties to Esteban Ocon – so the Briton was already playing catch up ahead of the afternoon session.

Ocon had earlier failed to set a lap time due to his own puncture woe, and Jolyon unfortunately went on to endure the same fate in FP2.

Jolyon hit the track shortly after 2pm local time, and was able to set a steady 1:29.175s lap time on his first completed tour. As he blasted past the start/finish line, however, his left-rear tyre suffered with a spectacular delamination. Jolyon was able to bring the car under control, despite running at full speed towards turn one when the tyre gave way, and the Renault R.S.16 eventually came to a halt on the inside of Elf corner.

The red flag was thrown as recovery crews retrieved Jolyon’s stricken machine, and the former GP2 champion endured a painful wait as his engineers and mechanics faced a race against time to ready his car before the end of practice.

The call finally came with 15 minutes remaining and Jolyon was then able to complete a clean run to the chequered flag. Jolyon set a good 1:26.770s lap time on the Pirelli soft tyre, jumping up to 17^th in the process. He continued to set solid times until the finish, despite the ultimate performance of the tyre fading, and he eventually went on to clock a much needed 16 laps of the circuit.

“It’s not ideal but at least we got those 15 minutes in at the end,” said Jolyon. “It’s a circuit we know well of course, so in that respect it isn’t too bad, but I genuinely feel those 15 minutes were vital. I’ve at least got a feel for the car and I was in the ballpark in terms of times. I hoped we had our back luck out of the way with Esteban’s puncture this morning, but then one timed lap into my run we had another. It’s a shame for both of us that we didn’t really get enough laps in, but at least Kevin had a solid run and I’m sure we can learn something from that – let’s hope we really have got rid of the bad luck now!”

Despite today’s frustrations, Jolyon will get the chance to put more mileage on his machine in FP3 tomorrow, before the all-important qualifying session for the Spanish Grand Prix. 

Jolyon’s official website and social media channels will keep you updated throughout the weekend.