Yas Marina GP2 race report

05/11/2013

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Comma sponsored Jolyon Palmer's storming drive to a hotly contested second place in the final Feature Race of the GP2 season was tempered by the frustration of elimination with damage to his car in the Sprint Race at the Yas Marina circuit in the United Arab Emirates on November 3rd. The retirement cost Jolyon a briefly-held sixth place in the championship table, nevertheless leaving him to post his highest ever end-of-season performance of seventh place in the GP2 standings, a tantalising two points behind Sweden's Marcus Ericsson and an impressive 16 points clear of Monaco's Stéphane Richelmi in eighth place.

Qualifying & Feature Race

Despite a rather disappointing practice session, a really strong performance in qualifying saw 22 year old Jolyon line up for Saturday's Feature Race in third place alongside Switzerland's Fabio Leimer on the second row, and behind the USA's Alexander Rossi in pole position and fellow Brit Sam Bird on the front row. A great start gave Jolyon the lead after the first corner, but almost immediately the safety car was deployed to deal with a coming-together between Jon Lancaster and Tom Dillman. When racing resumed, Jolyon and Rossi put some distance between themselves and the chasing pack, with Jolyon in the lead setting fastest lap times before their scheduled pit stops for tyres, which resulted in Rossi taking a narrow lead. Jolyon once again set the fastest lap of the race to close in on the American, leaving third place man Leimer 15 seconds behind before the safety car once again bunched the field for a couple of laps. Four laps remained after the safety car pulled off, and Jolyon once again fended off a challenge from Leimer although he was unable to match the advantage enjoyed by Rossi who had chosen the more favourable medium tyres against Jolyon's strategic choice of the softer compound in order to save a set of the option rubber for Sunday's Sprint race. At the chequered flag, Rossi led Jolyon home by just 2.1 seconds, with Ericsson overtaking Leimer in the closing stages to claim the third place on the podium.

"I'm happy with second but a little frustrated as I think the win was there," said Jolyon after the race. "The car felt great and we had good pace; I think we just lost out on the strategy a little bit. Having said that, we have a set of the primes for the race tomorrow, so overall I'm happy."

Sprint Race

Jolyon's fourth row starting position from seventh on the grid became tenth by the end of the first lap in which he was obliged to take avoiding action when his team mate Felipe Nasr and pole man Johnny Cecotto tangled on the first corner. The safety car made its appearance on the second lap to clear Alexander Rossi's crashed car by which time Jolyon had improved to ninth place, but a misjudged later move to take Sergio Canamasas for eighth place cost him a couple of places to Stefano Coletti and Julian Leal. Six laps later the safety car was out once again to bunch up the field, and when the racing action resumed, Jolyon passed Leal to reclaim tenth place. However, there was contact between the two and with three laps of the race remaining, the Carlin team called him in and the car was retired.

"I had a bad start, and then I had to avoid Nasr and Cecotto at the first corner, so lost a lot of places there," said a rueful Jolyon after the race. "I made up a few places before the safety car came out, but unfortunately I made a little mistake and lost a couple of places. I passed Leal twice and the second time we had contact, and there was some damage to the car which forced me to retire. Everything that could have gone wrong did really, so not the way to end a season which has been so strong in the second half of the year."

Perhaps an understandable reaction in the immediate aftermath of a hot and steamy weekend, but Jolyon was maybe being a little harsh on himself. A more measured judgement of his 2013 season might be that he has made notable progress as a feisty and combative driver, and positioned himself amongst the 'coming men' on the threshold of Formula 1. His race victory in Hungary was a genuine breakthrough, and with a dominant win in Singapore, he was the only driver all year to score a maximum 31 points from a single race. Moreover, along with his Brazilian team mate Felipe Nasr, he contributed to the Carlin team – to which Comma is also Technical Partner – scoring in their debut GP2 season the greatest number of points, a feat only equalled by Russian Time who claimed the team title on count-back by virtue of a greater number of race wins. All in all, Jolyon, Felipe and the entire Carlin team have done themselves and Comma very proud.