Jolyon
Palmer

Jolyon Palmer was born in Horsham on 20 January 1991. His father, Jonathan Palmer, also raced in Formula One. After karting in 2004, he moved into car racing in 2005 with the Autumn Trophy of the T Cars championship, then competed in Formula Palmer Audi in 2007 and 2008, a series his father had founded. He raced in the FIA Formula Two Championship in 2009 and 2010, finishing second overall behind Dean Stoneman in the latter year. From 2011 to 2014 he drove in the GP2 Series for Arden, iSport, Carlin and DAMS. In 2014 he won the title with DAMS, securing it at Sochi with three races still to run and setting a points record for the series.

In 2015 Palmer was test and reserve driver for Lotus and took part in the first free practice session at several Grands Prix. For 2016 he stepped up to a race seat with Renault as the company returned to Formula One as a constructor, partnering Kevin Magnussen. He scored his first championship point with tenth place in the Malaysian Grand Prix and finished the year 18th in the standings. In 2017 his team-mate was Nico Hülkenberg. He finished sixth in the Singapore Grand Prix, his best result in Formula One and his only points of that season, and ended the year 17th overall. He left the team after the Japanese Grand Prix, with Carlos Sainz taking over his car. Palmer made 35 Formula One starts and never stood on the podium.

After his racing career he moved into broadcasting. From 2018 he worked as an expert for the BBC. In 2023 he began working as a colour commentator for F1 TV, BBC Sport and Channel 4, and hosted his own show on F1 TV in which he reviewed each race.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jolyon Palmer”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.