Master Palmer masters Monza at the double!

27/05/2010

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Jolyon Palmer fulfilled the dream of every aspiring World Champion by racing to twin victories on Italy's fabled Monza circuit in rounds five and six of the FIA Formula Two championship on May 22^nd/23^rd.

Driving his 480 bhp Comma sponsored JBH1B race car, Jolyon totally dominated the weekend, qualifying in pole position for both races and leading from lights to chequered flag in both races. It was a performance made all the more remarkable by the fact that Jolyon - still a 19 year old teenager - had never before even seen the circuit, let alone raced there. "The day before we started practice, I had a tour of the circuit including the famous old banked track which hasn't been raced on since the 1950's, and everything absolutely echoes with history," Jolyon told us. It's been the national home of Italian motor racing since 1922, and the whole place is just so inspirational."

After such a commanding performance, Jolyon is perhaps entitled to have his head in the clouds, but in fact his feet are still firmly on the ground. "There was talk after the last rounds in Marrakech that the championship was going to be a two horse race between Philip Eng and Dean Stoneman," he said. "Hopefully, I put the brakes on that kind of talk this weekend, but we're only a third of the way through the series and there are still a theoretical maximum 300 points on offer. In reality, any driver in the top ten is still in with a shout, so I'll be fighting as hard for my share as anyone."    

For the time being, Jolyon has re-taken charge of the championship table with 103 points, 12 ahead of fellow Brit Stoneman who converted indifferent - for him - qualifying performances into valuable points with aggressive drives through the midfield in both races to net himself second place in race 1 and fourth place in race 2.  Eng, with 80 points thanks to previous wins at Silverstone and Marrakech, had a barren weekend, the Austrian leaving Italy empty handed after finishing one place out of the points in race 1 and retiring from race 2 after an incident involving Stoneman and Denmark's Johan Jokinen.   

In addition to sponsoring Palmer, Comma is also Technical Partner to the FIA Formula Two championship, providing engine oils, coolants and maintenance products for all 24 of the identical cars in the series.

The championship now moves on to the Zolder circuit in Belgium on June 19^th/20^th, an occasional home of the Belgian Grand Prix in the 1970's and another venue which is new to Jolyon. On this occasion though, all the drivers will have a chance to familiarise themselves with the tricky and quite technical circuit with a day's unofficial testing in the week before the event.

You can view the complete championship standings and keep up with all the other latest FIA Formula Two news at the excellent official website at http://www.formulatwo.com