Another impressive Free Practice performance from Jolyon Palmer this morning (Friday) saw the Lotus F1 Team Third and Reserve Driver finish the 90-minute session in 14th position, just 0.046s behind his team-mate Pastor Maldonado. The 24-year-old completed 27 laps and worked through a large amount of development and set-up work for the Enstone-based outfit, with Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director for Lotus F1 Team, declaring: "Jolyon did a great job."

Following an initial installation lap for systems check purposes, Jolyon returned to the track for a lengthy first stint. After posting an early lap-time of 1m17.160s, he quickly improved on consecutive tours to lap the circuit in 1m12.687s, which put him eighth overall and within one-tenth of Maldonado. Jolyon pitted with one hour left in the session, lying just 1.847s off fastest man Nico Rosberg.

Returning to the track with 35 minutes remaining on the clock, on soft tyres the Southwater ace improved his earlier times, with a 1m12.050s moving him into eighth position. With just over 20 minutes he returned to the pit-lane having already completed 23 laps of the Spielberg track.

A third and final run was undertaken by Jolyon but he came into the pits shortly after, without improving his time, to end the session in 14th position. In a remarkably tight 90 minutes, just 1.5s covered the entire top-15 with Jolyon just over a tenth of a second off breaking into the top-10.

The session was led by the two dominant Mercedes cars of Nico Rosberg and championship leader Lewis Hamilton. Former World Champion Kimi Raikkonen was third in his Ferrari with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Nasr rounding out the top-five.

Jolyon's duties for the weekend continue as he provided analysis of Free Practice Two this afternoon (19 June) for Sky Sports F1 alongside regular commentator David Croft and will do so again in FP3 on Saturday (20 June). He will also commentate on Sky's coverage of the GP2 Series throughout the weekend along with his regular Lotus F1 Team commitments.

The Lotus F1 Team Third and Reserve Driver will return to the cockpit of the E23 Hybrid on Wednesday next week as part of the two-day (23-24 June) in-season official F1 test at the Red Bull Ring.

Jolyon Palmer, Lotus F1 Team Third and Reserve Driver, commented: "It was a good session. There were no real dramas but I had to stop slightly early as I had a flat spot on the front tyres, which was a shame. Overall I am happy with my session and I'm looking forward to seeing how the team performs over the rest of the weekend."

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director, Lotus F1 Team said: "As we've come to expect, Jolyon did a great job in today's session. Starting with a lightly damp track on dry tyres, Jolyon completed the programme as required, clocking-up 27 laps and accumulating valuable data for the weekend ahead. The Austrian circuit looks deceptively simple, but it is actually quite a technical track to master so it was great to see Jolyon straight up to speed here."

Austrian Grand Prix - Free Practice One - Results

1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1m10.401s
2. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, +0.308s
3. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, +0.627ss
4. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, +1.051s
5. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, +1.232ss
6. Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull, +1.241ss
7. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, +1.323s
8. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, +1.424s
9. Felipe Massa, Williams, +1.489s
10. Sergio Perez, Force India, +1.504s
11. Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso, +1.547s
12. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus F1 Team, +1.603s
13. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, +1.630s
14. Jolyon Palmer, Lotus F1 Team, +1.649s
15. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber, +1.758s
16. Jenson Button, McLaren, +2.519s
17. Fernando Alonso, McLaren, +2.871s
18. Will Stevens, Marussia, +3.536s
19. Roberto Merhi, Marussia, +5.058s
20. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, +5.283s