Lotus reserve Jolyon Palmer says Romain Grosjean should not be concerned to be missing out on track time during FP1 sessions based on his results this season.
Palmer is set to take part in ten practice sessions on Fridays, with Grosjean the driver to step aside each time due to Pastor Maldonado’s significant PDVSA sponsorship. While Grosjean has voiced his concerns about having to relinquish his seat so often - even saying he has asked Maldonado to do so but had the request rejected - Palmer says he doesn't think it is having a negative impact.
“I don’t know what the effect is so far because I don’t know what more he could have done,” Palmer said. “In the last race he had contact with Pastor which dropped him back a bit but he’s done a good job. In the Friday’s I’ve done he couldn’t have done more in the race, he finished seventh in China, seventh in Bahrain and eighth here. Maybe seventh was possible here, maybe, but it’s not been possible to do any more.
“He’s not happy because it’s never nice to be not driving, I’m quite aware of that because I’m not driving a lot but overall I think he understands and it’s really not having an effect at the moment.”
And reigning GP2 champion Palmer says he only took the seat at Lotus because it offered him so much time in the 2015 car.
“It was important for me to be driving the car as much as possible in this role because (former Lotus reserves) Davide Valsecchi and even Charles Pic last year didn’t really do a lot. You can’t further your career if you’re not driving a car. You can be as good as you like at talking to the engineers but if you’re not able to show what you can do you’re no better off really.
“So that was really important for me. So far it’s actually gone really well, every time I’ve been in the car the engineers are really happy, the team are happy so it’s good for me that they’re happy to put me in even more.”
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