Jolyon Palmer qualified in 17^th place on his first visit to the Valencia street circuit for tomorrow's opening GP2 race.

Still learning the circuit after practice, Jolyon made a steady start to qualifying before setting his best lap on his 10^th tour of the 5.419km circuit.

His time was just 1.3 seconds off polesitter Charles Pic, who narrowly edged out Giedo Van Der Garde and Romain Grosjean.

Jolyon also outqualified his Arden International team mate Josef Kral who has prior experience of the Valencia circuit from 2010.

Speaking afterwards Jolyon said: "That session was not too bad. I struggled a lot with traffic and on my best lap I actually had to overtake someone into the final corner which cost me a chunk of time. It's frustrating because I think I could have been fringes off the top 10 but 17th is still not too bad considering it's my first time here. I think points in tomorrow's race is still a realistic target."

The 2010 FIA Formula Two runner-up is next in action during tomorrow's GP2 feature race which starts at 2.40pm UK time.

Valencia, qualifying results:

1. C Pic, ART, 1:46.675s
2. G VD Garde, Addax, +0.052s
3. R Grosjean, DAMS, +0.096s
4. L Filippi, Super Nova, +0.278s
5. E Gutierrez, ART, +0.320s
6. S Bird, iSport, +0.341s
7. D Clos, Racing, +0.366s
8. D Valsecchi, AirAsia, +0.454s
9. J Bianchi, ART, +0.662s
17. J Palmer, Arden, +1.357s