Jolyon Palmer enjoyed a solid day’s running during the opening two free practice sessions ahead of this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix (15-17 April), logging almost 50 laps as he worked methodically through his pre-race programme.

In hot and sunny conditions – with the track temperature hitting 47°C – Palmer made the most of a red flag-punctuated FP1 that restricted drivers’ running to tally 16 laps behind the wheel of his Renault Sport Formula One Team R.S.16, winding up 17^th-quickest amongst the 22 competitors.

Flying solo for the squad in the afternoon’s FP2 session due to issues on team-mate Kevin Magnussen’s car, the young British F1 rookie flirted with the top ten a third of the way through as he leapt up to 11^th position on the super-soft tyres, before settling into a series of long runs on medium-compound rubber in preparation for the race. 

Putting 32 more laps on the board, Palmer lowered his fastest effort by more than two seconds to conclude the day 15^th on the timesheets. 

Jolyon said: "We got through the majority of our programme today and made some good progress in FP2 so that’s encouraging. It was very low grip earlier on in the day and the track is rubbering in quite quickly so I think the times will keep dropping for everyone. For us, we have plenty of data to analyse from both short and long runs. We’ll work on things tonight to see where we can improve for tomorrow."

The 25-year-old Southwater racer and former GP2 Series Champion will return to the Shanghai International Circuit for FP3 at midday local time on Saturday (04:00 GMT), followed by qualifying at 15:00 (07:00 GMT).