Sunday, September 02 2012

Jolyon Palmer produced a brilliant drive during today's (Sunday) GP2 Sprint Race at Spa, making up an outstanding 12 places from the back of the grid to finish 10th.
 
Starting from P22 after a frustrating race yesterday, the 21-year-old made a blistering start at the sun-soaked Belgian track to move up P10 during a frantic opening lap which saw him pick up some front wing damage. He was then locked in a battle for ninth spot with iSport team-mate and yesterday's race-winner Marcus Ericcson, whilst also soaking up sustained pressure from Fabio Leimer behind.
 
By the halfway stage Leimer had found a way past Jolyon in the run up to Eau Rouge with Palmer fighting back at Les Combes, but retaking the place whilst running wide. Sensibly he gave the position straight back but in the process allowed the following car of Stefano Coletti to also sneak through.
 
Having looked after his tyres superbly, Jolyon's pace was able to see him retake both Coletti and Fabio Onidi to move up into eighth with just a handful of laps remaining. On the final chicane though he went to make a move but lost out to Coletti and Julian Leal to cross the line P10.
 
Speaking afterwards Jolyon said: "I had a great first lap to move up from 22nd to 10th but ran over some debris in the process damaging my front wing and floor, losing a chunk of downforce. From there I was doing ok until I made a mistake and lost a place to Leimer. At the end of the race I was eighth but lost out at the final corner as I went for a move and locked the rear brakes so finished 10th which was disappointing as a top five was possible without the damage."
 
At the front, Josef Kral secured the win for Addax with Felipe Nasr just pipping James Calado at the line to take second with the Briton in third.
 
Jolyon will now prepare for the next rounds in the 2012 GP2 Series which take place at Italy's Monza circuit from 7-9 September.

MORE TO FOLLOW...
  
GP2 Spa, Sprint Race results:
 
1. J Kral, Addax, 18 laps
 2. F Nasr, DAMS, +5.1s
 3. J Calado, Lotus GP, +5.2s
 4. M Ericsson, iSport, +6.3s
 5. F Leimer, Racing, +11.0s
 6. S Richelmi, Trident, +24.6s
 7. R Haryanto, Carlin, +25.2s
 8. S Coletti, Scuderia, +25.9s
 9. J Leal, Trident, +26.2s
 10. J Palmer, iSport, +27.4s