Jolyon Palmer made a storming start at Bahrain to claim fifth place in the opening race of the weekend from 12th on the grid.

Jolyon immediately gained a place on the formation lap when Marcus Ericsson stalled from the front row. He made a superb start to grab sixth place in the opening corners and tracked Alexander Rossi as the field completed lap one.

The American was despatched into turn one of the second lap and despite having to defend later on around the circuit, Jolyon was able to latch onto the leading group, with team mate Nasr just ahead as he settled into the race.

With the order remaining the same, Jolyon elected to stop on lap nine but returned to the track behind Rossi, who had made his tyre change one lap earlier. However he gained places on Nasr and Sam Bird when they made their pitlane calls on the next tour, giving him a net fourth position.

Stefano Coletti rejoined ahead of Rossi and Jolyon battled with the pair as the race headed into the midway point. The top nine cars had yet to make their pitstops and Jolyon sat just five seconds away from poleman Fabio Leimer, who was first of the drivers to have changed tyres.

Jolyon's group then caught the leaders and as they filtered through to the front the remaining pitstops were made, confirming his fourth position on the road. However with his tyres now several laps old, team mate Nasr was able to slip past in the closing laps and Jolyon completed the race in fifth place.

Jolyon summed up his performance after the race: "I was really pleased with my start, I made a lot of places and then managed to pass Rossi at the end of lap one for P5. I was jumped in the stops by him though as I had a slight issue with anti-stall. After that I was in fourth for the second half of the race trying to save tyres in behind Rossi. Ultimately I ended up losing them near the end and dropped to fifth with two laps to go. I'm happy with the result though from 12th on the grid. We start fourth tomorrow and have a bit of work to do on the setup but I'm confident of a good race again. "

Jolyon's second Bahrain race takes place at 8:45am UK time tomorrow. You can follow Jolyon's progress on this website.

GP2 Bahrain, Race one result
1, F Leimer, Racing, 32 Laps
2, S Coletti, Rapax, +1.929s
3, A Rossi, Caterham, +9.030s
4, F Nasr, Carlin, +9.498s
5, J Palmer, Carlin, +15.037s
6, S Bird, Russian, +28.518s
7, A Quaife-Hobbs, MP, +33.067s
8, T Dillmann, Russian, +33.589s
9. S Trummer, Rapax, +36.246s
10. J Cecotto, Arden, +37.459s