Briton Jolyon Palmer performed extremely well during his debut F1 qualifying session in Melbourne to take an eye-catching 14^th place, beating his Renault Sport F1 team-mate Kevin Magnussen in the process.

After a fairly truncated day of practice in wet conditions on Friday, Jolyon was unable to experience the Albert Park circuit in prime conditions until Free Practice 3 on Saturday morning, which made his qualifying performance all the more impressive.

Palmer produced the goods under immense pressure in the opening segment of qualifying, which under the new rules sees one car eliminated every 90 seconds after the first seven minutes of running.

The 25-year-old completed a solid first lap to get inside the top 15, but quickly fell down the order as the session drew to a close. Despite seeing off a number of rivals Jolyon eventually found himself in the drop zone in the closing moments after the Sauber of Esteban Gutierrez improved on his lap time. 

With the TV cameras and eyes of the world upon him Palmer had one flying lap attempt remaining to get into the second session of qualifying. He duly stood up to the task by producing a faultless tour that put him above Gutierrez and Magnussen - comfortably seeing him through to Q2. 

With the lap times now reset Jolyon had it all to do again in the second session with the outright performance of the new Renault Sport F1 R.S.16 seemingly edging towards its limit.

Palmer showed his class again against his more experienced stable-mate by setting a 1:27.601s lap time, bettering Magnussen by more than a tenth of a second. The lap was good enough for 14^th on the grid and with development of the team’s new car in its infancy it seems that Palmer got the very best from his machine at this early stage of the season.

“That felt pretty good,” said Palmer. “There was some pressure of course as the team kept me informed, and I knew I was on the bubble for much of the first session. Thankfully I managed to put it all together. We made Q2 and then went on to get a decent position on the grid – happy days.” 

So Jolyon will start his first ever FIA Formula One World Championship grand prix from the seventh row tomorrow and you can visit www.jolyonpalmer.com for news updates and images.

2016 Australian GP: Qualifying