Jolyon Palmer's maiden British Grand Prix unravelled after the Renault driver left his box with the rear right wheel missing on his Renault R.S.16 at his second pit stop.

Prior to the mishap, the F1 rookie had managed to move past team-mate Kevin Magnussen following an opening stint on full wets behind the Safety Car and a strong spell on Pirelli’s intermediate tyres.

With the track quickly drying out at Silverstone, Palmer duly switched to a set of mediums. The 25-year-old was looking to make further progress in his home event when he suffered the costly tyre issue.

“When I pitted for slick tyres, I had a green light to go but the rear right wasn’t finished and I’d already started to leave the box.

“From then on I lost about a minute and then received a 10 seconds penalty for unsafe release. What happened was unfortunate but it could happen to anyone up and down the pitlane.”

Palmer’s misery came to an end 12 laps from the flag when the team elected to stop him.

“We retired the car as there was a strange feeling with the gearbox, more as a precaution as at that stage we were two laps down. We’ll now investigate the problem thoroughly.

“It wasn’t the result I wanted for my home race.

“I’m looking forward to the test this week and focussing on the next race weekend.”

The second in-season test takes place at Silverstone on July 12/13.

RACE REPORT: Hamilton beats Rosberg and Verstappen in British GP

AS IT HAPPENED: British Grand Prix

FEATURE: Home sweet Home - Eric Silbermann on Silverstone

Romain Grosjean on predicting race results and collisions between team mates, in his latest column for F1i

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Julien Billiotte

Recent Posts

‘It’s all nonsense’: Former F1 insider slams Perez's Red Bull claims

The checkered flag may have dropped on Sergio Perez’s Red Bull career, but the verbal…

56 mins ago

Andretti fires successful opening salvo in Argentina

On this day in 1978, Mario Andretti kicked off his banner championship winning year with…

2 hours ago

Not a one-off: Hill sees multiple world titles for Norris

Damon Hill knows a thing or two about what it takes to climb Formula 1’s…

3 hours ago

Domenicali calls for calm and a plan as Ferrari eyes 2026 reset

Formula 1’s most polished powerbroker has seen this movie before – and Stefano Domenicali is…

4 hours ago

Verstappen puts Bathurst 1000 Supercar event on bucket list

Max Verstappen’s racing curiosity has never been confined to Formula 1 – and now, one…

6 hours ago

Vowles warns 2026 weight limit will catch F1 teams out

When F1’s radically redesigned 2026 cars finally roll out in Barcelona at the end of…

20 hours ago