Jolyon Palmer finished a frustrating 17th place during today's (Saturday) opening GP2 Feature Race in Malaysia, producing a determined recovery drive after enduring a luckless start.

At a hot and humid Sepang circuit, Jolyon lined up on the grid in P7 following an impressive performance during yesterday's very closely fought qualifying session.

As the 26 drivers completed their formation lap, Jolyon stalled on the line, forcing him to start the race from the pit lane and the back of the field.

Undeterred, the 21-year-old set about recovering ground and had already made up several places after the opening few laps and continued to move through the field, showing good pace on the harder prime tyres.

By lap 14, Jolyon had worked his way up to a superb eighth place before pitting to change his rear tyres. He re-emerged in P14 after the pit stop shake-up, with just over half race distance left to complete.

Jolyon continued to push as the race drew to a close but was unable to gain further ground due to high tyre degradation combined with rain at Turn 6, causing him to slip down to P17 and end a frustrating race for the Brit.

Speaking afterwards Jolyon said: "Firstly I stalled at the start, it was my fault. It was ok but when we were sent off for a second formation lap after Tom Dillmann stalled I dropped the clutch too quickly and stalled myself so I had to start from the pit lane. In the first half of the race we showed good pace and I made my way through to the midfield. Then we only changed the rear tyres and this was a big mistake. The front tyres were worn and I couldn't do anything but go backwards. I'm confident now we can put this big disappointment behind us, learn from this and use our good pace we showed in the first stint to haul ourselves up from 17^th tomorrow."

Meanwhile, Arden's Luiz Razia secured the race honours with Davide Valsecchi second and Max Chilton claiming the final podium spot.

Jolyon returns to the track tomorrow at 06:15 (UK time) for the weekend's final Sprint Race with full coverage on www.jolyonpalmer.com, as well as Sky's F1 Channel.

GP2 Malaysia, Feature Race results:

1. L Razia, Arden, 30 laps
2. D Valsecchi, DAMS, +7.817s
3. M Chilton, Carlin, +27.366s
4. F Leimer, Racing, +28.291s
5. S Coletti, Scuderia, +32.217s
6. F Nasr, DAMS, +33.378s
7. E Gutierrez, Lotus GP, +33.679s
8. J Calado, Lotus GP, +36.449s
9. G VD Garde, Caterham, +41.519s
17. J Palmer, iSport, +72.881s