Jolyon Palmer made an impressive start to his inaugural GP2 season in Turkey today (Friday) by qualifying 13th and ending as top rookie in his first main series qualifying session.

After a tricky wet practice session earlier today, the 20-year-old made a bright start to the 30-minute session at the Istanbul Speed Park going straight in at P11.

The session was interrupted several times with Davide Valsecchi and later Mikhail Aleshin causing two red flags - preventing Jolyon from posting consistent runs and dropping him down the order.

Then with less than five minutes remaining the West Sussex racer, son of former Formula 1 driver Jonathan, put in a superb lap to shoot up the timesheets to just outside the top 10.

With time for one more lap and Jolyon lying 13th out of 26 drivers, the Brit was on a hot lap setting a personal best in the first sector when the third red flag of the session - caused by Michael Herck running wide - brought an abrupt end to his lap, denying him a possible top 10 finish.

Jolyon still ended the session as the top rookie though with his best time, a 1:35.159s, just 0.761s off the pole pace set by the more experienced Romain Grosjean.  

Speaking afterwards Jolyon said: "Finishing 13th was a pleasing result considering it was the first laps I've ever done around the track in the dry. The times are all so close and I made a small error on my lap so it's a bit frustrating not to end up inside the top 10 but nonetheless it was a solid result. The target for tomorrow's race is definitely a points finish."

Race one takes place tomorrow (Saturday) at 1.40pm (GMT +1).

Turkey GP2 Qualifying One session times:

1. Roman Grosjean, Dams, 1:34.398s
2. Sam Bird, iSport, 1:34.483s
3. Luca Filippi, Super Nova Racing, 1:34.709s
4. Jules Bianchi, Lotus ART, 1:34.784s
5. Dani Clos, Racing Engineering, 1:34.797s
6. Luiz Razia, Team AirAsia, 1:34.888s
7. Charles Pic, Addax, 1:34.954s
8. Davide Valsecchi, Team AirAsia, 1:34.975s
9. Christian Vietoris, Racing Engineering, 1:34.981s
13. Jolyon Palmer, Arden International, 1:35.159s