Photo by: XPB Images
First points of the season for the iSport team
The Bahrain race weekend came to a conclusion today, with iSport securing their first points of the season in the Sprint Race, after Jolyon Palmer make a spectacular recovery from the back of the grid, to finish seventh.
After missing the chance to drive in the Feature Race the previous day, due to his car suffering electrical failure, Palmer was eager to get back out on the track and make an impression. The driver had a great start, moving up to P17 in the opening lap, and with team mate Marcus Ericsson taking P8, things started to look up for the team. Ericsson continued to keep his pace throughout the first half, and fought well to keep his position from Van der Garde, who was on his tail for from lap 11. Unfortunately, tyre degradation played a big part again for the driver, and within the last few laps started dropping down the field, eventually finishing in P16. Palmer however, continued to go from strength to strength, moving up into the top ten, and gaining a position during Leimer’s pit lane penalty. After making a fantastic overtake on Van der Garde at turn 1, he took P8 which put him in the points system. He continued with his pace, overtaking yet again, then finally crossing the line in P7, resulting in him taking 2 points.
Paul Jackson – Team Principal
“After the disappointment of yesterday, we had something to smile about today, at least with Jolyon. He had a remarkable drive from the back row through to seventh and his first points. He managed some impressive overtakes on the way, which compensated a little for the electrical problem yesterday. Marcus also started extremely well and moved up the field to seventh at one point; however, towards the end he suffered with tyre degradation again and started to lose ground. This was a real puzzle, as it has always been Marcus's strong point and something we concentrated on in testing, however we have discovered a large piece of debris wedged under the floor of Marcus's car, which cost him downforce and will explain why he had so much tyre degradation.”
The iSport team will return to the Sakhir circuit next weekend, for the GP2 standalone event, which is Round 3 in the GP2 race calendar.
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