Jolyon Palmer was easily the fastest driver in GP2 practice at the brand new Sochi Autodrom circuit this morning (Friday), over half-a-second clear of the rest of the field.

Palmer set the pace early in the session with a string of three fastest laps, at one point nearly two seconds faster than his nearest challengers.

He pitted with 27 minutes remaining, during which time a handful of drivers were able to improve their times and move above Jolyon on the timesheets.

Jolyon returned to the track for a brief period to gain more knowledge of it, before pitting once more for fresh tyres with nine minutes remaining.

Lying seventh, he then set a personal best time in the first sector and overall best times in the second and third sectors to lay down an impressive marker of 1m46.083s, 0.535s clear of the next quickest man Arthur Pic. 

Nearest championship rival Felipe Nasr was ninth fastest, over a second off Jolyon's time. Jolyon's lap in practice was quicker than three F1-runners in their earlier session.

Palmer commented: "That's a great start to the weekend. I was down to the pace really quickly and then we tried a couple of changes before putting in a good lap at the end.

"I quite like the track, it is different to what I was expecting and it has a nice flow to it with a good mix of corners. Now we need to focus on being on pole later as being fast in practice counts for nothing!"

Sochi Autodrom, GP2 Practice result:

1. J Palmer, DAMS, 1m46.083s
2. A Pic, Campos, +0.535s
3. A Negrao, Arden, +0.540s
4. S Vandoorne, ART GP, +0.657s
5. M Evans, Russian Time, +0.680s
6. K Sato, Campos, +0.698s
7. J Cecotto, Trident, +0.806s
8. N Berthon, Venezuela, +0.944s
9. F Nasr, Carlin, +1.040s
10. T Ellinas, Rapax, +1.276s