New chassis for Palmer after Monaco crash

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Jolyon Palmer will receive a new chassis for the Canadian Grand Prix following his heavy crash in Monaco.

With the race starting behind the safety car due to heavy rain, Palmer didn't even make it to the braking point for the first corner once the safety car returned to the pits. Losing control on painted white lines, Palmer hit the wall hard on the pit straight and slid as far as Ste Devote before hitting the barrier again.

Renault has confirmed the incident requires a new chassis, while team-mate Kevin Magnussen's car is fine despite also retiring with damage in Monaco.

"Kevin’s incidents mainly damaged bolt-on parts whereas Jolyon’s incident means we will use a new chassis – R.S.16-04 – for Montréal," chassis technical director Nick Chester said. "The car hit the barriers quite hard at an oblique angle which damaged the front of the chassis and since we have a new chassis available it makes sense to introduce it.

"Fortunately, 04 was pretty far along on its build so we only needed to complete fuel cell installation and wiring for it to be ready for Canada."

Palmer himself says he has even offered to help with the chassis build having had a number of crashes during the Monaco weekend.

"We went over the data and it looks like it was the lower grip as I crossed the white lines of the zebra crossing which meant my wheels span as I pushed to accelerate," Palmer said. "The car was pitched sideways and I collected the barriers. It was just the wrong place at the wrong time. I had a bit of bruising on my feet so it was just my ego and the car that had to suffer.

"I have been in Enstone since Monaco, to get some time in the simulator but I did also offer to get the spanners out to help build the new chassis… I’m very grateful for all the hard work that goes in at the track and back in Enstone and Viry and I did more than my fair share of damage to the car in Monaco."

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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.