Palmer lashes out at 'awful, terrible' car

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Renault's Jolyon Palmer will start from the back row of the grid for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix after a tempestuous time in qualifying.

The Briton lost time at the start of Q1 because of a problem with the fuel system.

"Today really didn’t go to plan," he explained. "I had a fuel surge on the first run, so I didn't do a lap."

After that, Palmer paid the price for losing time on Friday following a big accident during practice. And he didn't pull his punches when asked how the rebuilt car had performed today.

"I did the second lap - it was my first one of the whole weekend on low fuel and ultrasoft - and to be honest the car was awful.

"I didn’t have any grip and I struggled with the brakes so we need to know what went wrong.

Hamilton takes pole for the 2017 Australian Grand Prix

"Yesterday I did four laps, but at least the car was feeling good," he told Sky Sports F1. "Okay, I crashed, which was my bad, but I was really happy with the car at least. I was showing something sensible on the lap times.

"Today the car was put back together - I have to thank the guys - but actually it was a disaster. I was a second off what I did in my second lap in FP1, which is pretty terrible.

"The brakes are terrible. The balance is pretty horrible. And the traction is terrible."

"It’s been pretty far from the weekend I wanted to start the season so far, but let’s see what happens in the race," he added.

Asked whether he expected it to be a long race on Sunday, Palmer replied succinctly: "Oohh, yeah."

At least Palmer's made up one place on the grid already. Although he qualified in 20th place he'll actually start from 19th because of a gearbox change for Lance Stroll's Williams.

GALLERY: all the pics from Saturday's action

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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.