Renault Sport Formula One Team’s Jolyon Palmer put in a strong and strategic charge from the back of the grid to take fourteenth in today’s Formula 1 Gran Premio de México. Jolyon started P21 and made a pit stop under the safety car at the end of the first lap. This meant he used Pirelli’s medium compound tyres for a massive 70-lap stint. Kevin Magnussen started from P14 and his race strategy was modified from a one to a two-stop strategy, with a final stint on the super soft tyres.
Kevin started the race from P14 with a new set of Pirelli’s soft compound tyres. He stopped on lap 12 for a new set of medium tyres, then stopped on lap 51 for a new set of the super soft compound tyres.
Jolyon started the race from P21 – gaining one position as Romain Grosjean vacated the spot to start from the pit lane. Jolyon pitted at the end of the first lap under safety car conditions to exchange his new super soft tyres for a new set of mediums, which he ran with until the chequered flag.
Kevin Magnussen
“Last weekend a late stint on the super soft tyres worked really well for us but today it wasn’t the same story. We just didn’t seem to have the outright pace we needed on any of the tyres we used. It was a frustrating race for me. My first set of soft tyres dropped away as we expected but then we didn’t seem to be able to maintain the pace on the medium tyres so we changed strategy to the super softs, but by then we were too far behind. I’m hoping that we can have a much better race in Brazil.”
Jolyon Palmer
“I think fourteenth is as good as we could have got from starting at the back, so I’m happy! I had some really good fights with the McLaren guys, which was good fun, and 70 laps on one set of tyres is probably some sort of record… It was a bit of a challenge but in the end we were still going okay; we were quick enough to keep our competitors behind. All in all, I’m pretty happy with today.”
Fred Vasseur, Team Principal
“Jolyon had a strong race where we made the most of an aggressive strategy and pitted him very early under the safety car. He drove 70 laps on the same set of tyres and was very consistent to finish in front of some of our nearest rivals. He put in a robust defence of his position, in particular against both Jenson and Fernando. It was a very strong race for him. Kevin had a puzzling race as he was well-placed at the start but he struggled for pace whatever the tyres. We’ll spend a lot of time checking the car and analysing the race to understand how we could have done better. For Brazil we certainly want both cars fighting for points.”