A fighting drive in tricky conditions earned Jolyon Palmer a hard earned sixth place in this morning's GP2 Sprint race at Hockenheim.

Starting sixth on the grid after finishing third yesterday, Palmer elected to start the race on wet tyres. The field was split on tyre choice, with the track soaking wet but expected to dry out. With many of those in front on slick tyres, Jolyon made a great start to gain third place on the run down to the first corner, but ran wide exiting the turn and was fifth at the hairpin.

With an incident at turn one wiping out team mate Stephane Richelmi, the race was neutralised behind the safety car until lap four when racing resumed.

On lap five Jolyon was passed by Raffaele Marciello, but was back up to fifth on the next lap with a strong move on Nathanael Berthon. Looking to make further ground, Palmer closed rapidly on race one winner Mitch Evans, and moved into fourth place when Marciello slid off into the gravel on lap seven.

Tom Dillmann moved past Jolyon on lap eight on the run to the hairpin, but Jolyon once more regained the position with a bold round-the-outside move on Evans in the stadium section on lap nine.

With the track now drying rapidly, Jolyon was the first driver to change to slick tyres on lap 10, opting for the medium tyres, and resuming in 17th place.

With those in front starting to make the same call, Jolyon was up to 12th place by lap 13 when the safety car was deployed once more.

When the safety car pulled in after one lap, Jolyon set about making further progress. He rapidly climbed to sixth place, then set about pressuring Jon Lancaster in front. On lap 17, another brave move saw Jolyon pass Lancaster on the quick right-hander entering the stadium section, only to struggle for traction on a wet patch entering the pit straight, which allowed Lancaster to re-pass, with Alexander Rossi following through.

Undeterred, Jolyon fought back, lapping quicker than the duo in front and re-passing Rossi for sixth around the outside of the hairpin on lap 24, and closing rapidly on Lancaster. With the race now running to time rather than laps, only 26 of the 27 scheduled laps were completed. At the line Jolyon was just 0.4s behind Lancaster, after running 0.5s quicker than him in the preceding laps.

Speaking afterwards, Jolyon commented: "We chose to start on wets but unfortunately I didn't manage a proper lap to the grid because the engine temperatures were too low, so I had no brake temperatures or references for the opening laps and lost positions.

"We pitted early for slicks and it took a long time to get temperature into them again so I was passed by Coletti and Nasr who gambled with slicks from the start. Afterwards I was getting quicker and quicker towards the end and managed to get up to sixth, but it's not the result we were after.

"Now we need to focus on Budapest next weekend and get back to the front."

Jolyon is back in action next weekend (25-27 July) at the Hungaroring, Budapest. He goes there with a championship lead of 41 points.

More to follow

Hockenheim GP2 Sprint Race result:

1. S Coletti, Racing, 26 laps
2. F Nasr, Carlin, +1.2s
3. S Vandoorne, ART GP, +5.5s
4. M Sorensen, +15.6s
5. J Lancaster, Hilmer, +17.9s
6. J Palmer, DAMS, +18.4s
7. A Rossi, Caterham, +19.8s
8. A Quaife-Hobbs, Rapax, +24.2s
9. T Dillmann, Caterham, +25.4s
10. R Haryanto, Caterham, +36.0s