Jolyon Palmer finished 19th in today's GP2 Asia Feature Event in Imola, Italy, after a frustrating race that promised so much more.

At the start the young Briton made an excellent getaway from his eighth position on the grid, passing the iSport pairing of Sam Bird - who started from the front row - and Marcus Ericsson. Jolyon then held sixth comfortably and was pressuring championship leader Jules Bianchi until he damaged his front wing after clipping the rear of the Frenchman's car on the run to Rivazza. He briefly moved up to fifth position before the Arden team brought him in for his mandatory pit stop on lap 8 in the 35 lap race.

The early stop and a subsequent delay exiting the pits dropped Jolyon into 23rd position and amongst heavy traffic and he was unable to make significant progress from there, ultimately finishing in 19th place despite overtaking Luca Filippi, Charles Pic, Max Chilton and former F2 adversary Mikhail Aleshin.

"It was a very frustrating race unfortunately," said Jolyon. "I made a good start, and overtook Sam Bird and Marcus Ericsson to be sixth at the end of the first lap. Bianchi was just ahead and actually holding me up a bit - I tried a move down into Rivazza but he moved across and in a light touch I lost a front wing section, which left me with some understeer. I was running comfortably just behind Bianchi and ahead of Ericsson until pitting on lap 8 for tyres. Then it all went wrong! I couldn't select first gear in the pit stop which cost me 20 seconds and all the field passed as it was so early in the race. So 6th to 23rd in one go! I was then behind Pic in the Addax car but it is so hard to overtake. Eventually I managed to get by him, and then on the penultimate lap got by Aleshin and Chilton to take 19th. Starting from that tomorrow is going to be very difficult but I'll just give it my best shot and see what happens."

Romain Grosjean led from start to finish to take the Feature Race victory and claim the lead in the championship, with Giedo van der Garde in second and Bianchi third.

Imola GP2 Asia - Feature Race

The GP2 Asia Imola Sprint Race will take place at 14:00 local time on Sunday.