Jolyon Palmer produced a gutsy drive to finish today's (Sunday) GP2 Sprint race in 16th position, ending an encouraging weekend for the rookie at Silverstone.

The Arden International driver has been on the pace throughout the weekend after qualifying 11th and finishing tenth on the track in yesterday's Feature race. However, the 20-year-old was forced to start today's Sprint race in 20th position following the result of a stewards' investigation, which stripped him of his excellent tenth place finish. The penalty failed to disrupt his preparation for today's race and Jolyon went on to finish in 16th place thanks to an impressive getaway from the start.

The 2010 FIA Formula Two Championship runner-up judged the start perfectly and shot up from 20th to 15th place on the opening lap. Davide Valsecchi and Johnny Cecotto managed to find their way around Jolyon in the next two laps, but the Southwater driver soon re-passed Valsecchi for 16th spot.

Jolyon continued to produce solid pace lapping quicker than team mate Josef Kral on a regular basis, while pursuing the midfield. The West Sussex man continued to push and was never more than a second behind his next target Fairuz Fauzy, but was unable to find a way around him before the chequered flag. Frenchman Romain Grsojean claimed the top honours after a titanic scrap with Racing Engineering's Daniel Clos. Arden team mate Kral came home in 21st position.

"I made a good start, moving up a couple of places and had decent race pace", said Jolyon. "My rear tyres started going off slightly towards the end though meaning it was hard to make up further places, but 16th from 20th is not bad. It was always going to be tough after yesterday's penalty."

Jolyon is next in action on 22-24 July at the Nürburgring in Germany.

Silverstone Race Two results:

1. R Grosjean, DAMS, 21 laps
2. D Clos, Racing, +7.0s
3. G Van Der Garde, Barwa Addax, +7.7s
4. M Ericsson, iSport, +8.4s
5. J Bianchi, Lotus ART, +9.4s
6. S Bird, iSport, +12.9s
7. C Vietoris, Racing, +20.8s
8. E Gutierrez, Lotus ART, +21.8s
9. A Parente, Carlin, +22.1s
16 J Palmer, Arden, +33.4s