Jolyon Palmer has ‘deep reserves’ of mental strength according to his team boss Cyril Abiteboul, who believes he can bounce back after a torrid start to his 2017 campaign.
Having been out-qualified by his team-mate Nico Hulkenberg at every race so far, and failing to score a point in any of the first four rounds, Palmer has recently been under intense scrutiny from the press and fans alike.
The 2014 GP2 champion, however, he does have the backing of Abiteboul, who’s confident the British driver can recover.
“For Jolyon, it’s been a tough start to the season; if there’s been an issue affecting the car, you can almost guarantee it happens his side of the garage,” Abiteboul told ESPN.
“This is something we are responding to by ensuring each and every reliability issue that impacts upon performance is addressed and so much work occurs in this regard away from the track at Enstone and Viry.
“We know that Jolyon has deep reserves and can bounce back well. We saw last year how he came on strong in the second half of the season so we’re working hard to give him the car in which he can deliver.”
With a myriad of problems causing the Briton to miss out on critical track time in Russia, Palmer is hoping for a much more straightforward weekend at the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix and is hoping to score his first points of the season.
“The outlook [for Barcelona] is good,” Palmer added.
“We’ve seen what the R.S.17 is capable of and I know that all I need to score points is a straightforward weekend. Russia was really frustrating as I had a good car under me but I was out of the race by the second corner. That’s motor racing, but it’s still very frustrating.”
