Jolyon Palmer is looking forward to driving for Renault at the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix, his second Formula One race. He believes the Sakhir circuit will provide many opportunities for overtaking. Palmer performed well in his F1 debut in Australia, finishing 11th ahead of his more experienced teammate. He hopes to show improved performance from the Renault car and power unit at Bahrain now that the team has had more development time over the winter. Palmer wants dry running in practice to better understand how the Renault compares to other teams. He believes the pecking order seen in Australia may change at Bahrain due to the different track characteristics.

1. Palmer expects a closer battle in Bahrain
Britons Jolyon Palmer is looking forward to driving his Renault heading to the 2016 Bahrain
Grand Prix and his second race as a Formula One driver.
Jolyon is excited to drive around the 5.4km Sakhir circuit, “I think it is good place to race at,
especially with the modern F1 cars, the energy management plays a big part with a lot of
consecutive straights like one into four, there is a lot of overtaking places even into the last
corner”.
Palmer was speaking ahead of his first ever twilight race where he believed the track would
suit the Renault RE16 and a dramatically improved Renault power unit, that will be able to
compete with the ever dominating Mercedes power unit.
The Renault driver really enjoyed his Formula One debut and managed to impress the
paddock and show that his race seat is much deserved.
The son of former Formula One driver Johnathan Palmer had a brilliant debut finishing 11th
beating his more experienced teammate Kevin Magnussen.
The press asked about if Palmer could have had a rusty race craft before Australian, but he
squashed those rumours saying he was ‘buzzin’ waiting for the lights to go out.
Palmer challenged the Toro Rosso’s in Australia and believed Bahrain will be an excellent
track to show what the Renault RE16 can really do. The development of the Renault power
unit over the winter has allowed them to compete with the likes of Williams and Force India
who are running the Mercedes power unit.
Speaking to Autosport, Palmer believed there is more to come from the Renault power unit
and a constant development within aerodynamics will allow the French manufacturer to
compete throughout the whole season.
The debutant wants some dry running to show how the car really compares to the other
teams and allow the team to understand the car more.
“We need to have a good Friday, in Melbourne nobody had any running we were straight in
the deep end on Saturday but we need Friday to understand the car a little bit more and
yeah it’s quite a different track, I think the pecking might be slightly different”.
Melbourne has always been a strange race with teams getting used to their new car and the
pecking order should never be judged from the streets of Albert Park, Bahrain could
highlight weaknesses from engines with the long straights pushing the cars to the limit.