Wheelspin in fifth gear caused big Palmer shunt

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It was not the best of weekends for Jolyon Palmer, with Monaco proving eventful for the Renault driver in all the wrong ways.

Having hit the barriers once in FP1 on Thursday, and then clouting the barrier with the back end of the car in FP3 again on Saturday followed by being eliminated in the first round of qualifying later in the day, Palmer must have known that Monaco just wasn't going his way this year.

The torture finally came to an end early in the Grand Prix when Palmer was caught out by the wet conditions on lap 9 as the race finally went green after starting behind the safety car.

Palmer put the power down on the start/finish straight just as he was running over some road markings, causing the Renault to snap to the left into heavy contact with the barrier. After that he was a passenger as the wrecked car slid all the way into the run-off area at Ste Devote.

"The traction was appalling after the safety car and I got caught out," he explained. "I had wheelspin in fifth gear on the white line that crosses the track.

"There was nothing I could do – I was just a passenger and went straight away into the wall.

"It’s so difficult as we know that the white lines are slippery but they are everywhere.

"I’m disappointed as I love this track and it’s been good for me in the past. But I’m now looking forward to Canada and putting this weekend behind me. Monaco hasn’t been good to me this year so we need to move on to the next race and look for a better weekend."

"Jolyon’s race ended on the straight as soon as the race got underway," added Renault racing director Fred Vasseur.

"He had a pretty serious shunt, a fast one, and that put an end to his day; there was nothing to be done."

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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.