New Renault is 'awesome' to drive, says Palmer

Renault driver Jolyon Palmer has given his approval to the new RS17 after spending two weeks of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Palmer was hit by a number of teething problems during his time in the car. However still felt that it offered a great deal of promise for the 2017 championship. The season starts in Australia in less than two weeks.

“The RS17 is awesome to drive and there is a lot of further potential yet to come," said the Briton after the last day of testing on Friday.

"The car feels good in all the areas you’d want and it is definitely a strong improvement from the RS16 in every area.

"My final afternoon was promising in terms of pace. We made another step forward with a pretty much full afternoon in the car too.

"Australia is going to be really special with these cars and I am very positive for the season ahead."

Palmer completed 283 laps in the car. Renault in total ran 597 laps despite the reliability glitches. That's comparable with Toro Rosso, but 85 laps less than Red Bull - and a long way off Mercedes' 1096!

"We know the areas we need to address," said Renault's managing director Cyril Abiteboul. He added, "We have to focus on reliability with special attention on the ERS, which is already well underway.

Hulkenberg doubtful Renault can score points consistently in 2017.

"We already have a good step forward with performance thanks to this car and the new power unit as shown by our lap times [on Friday] despite adverse circumstances in the previous days that prevented optimising the package.

"Nico and Jo have also done a great job. I can already feel that they have the potential to make the contribution we are expecting to the team’s performance.

"Melbourne is just around the corner and we can’t wait to get this season underway."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.