Renault Formula 1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul says he feels ‘sorry’ for Jolyon Palmer after a dire Russian Grand Prix weekend.
The British driver suffered an exhaust problem on Friday afternoon, which burned the car and required the team to build a new chassis. He also required a new engine for qualifying when he suffered a loss of power in FP3.
His problems continued into qualifying, as he crashed into the wall in the first session, while his team-mate Nico Hulkenberg advanced into Q3 for the third time this season.
In the race, Palmer’s race ended on the opening lap following a collision with Haas’ Romain Grosjean.
Abiteboul spoke of his sympathy for the 26-year-old to Autosport.
“We had a number of issues to solve on the car, changing chassis, changing engine, the shunt in qualifying,” he said.
“I feel sorry for Jo and the group of people behind him who did a remarkable job over the weekend.
“When you change chassis and change engine you have all the reasons in the world to have problems, but we did not have a single operational problem, so I want to give a huge credit to the guys.”
Four races into the season and Palmer has failed to score, team-mate Hulkenberg has scored on two occasions and sits in 13th in the drivers’ championship five places above Palmer.
The Frenchman refused to blame Palmer for the incident and hopes he will take encouragement from his team-mate’s strong start to the season.
“Looking at the data it was obvious there was nothing he could have done to avoid that incident,” he added.
“So we left with a lot of frustration for Jo from one single mistake in a very difficult environment for him.
“Jolyon needs to feel that he’s in a team that has the capacity to deliver this type of performance.
“This performance is not just for Nico, we are not a one-man band, and he [Palmer] has to be part of it.
“We need Jo to score points, so there is absolutely no doubt in our commitment to him.”
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