Jolyon Palmer enjoyed a productive morning session on the second day of the official in-season Formula One test held at the Red Bull Ring today (Wednesday). The 24-year-old recorded the sixth quickest time with a 1m11.288s and completed 43 laps for Lotus F1 Team.

Taking over control of the E23 Hybrid from team-mate Romain Grosjean, who drove on the first day of the test, Jolyon completed 10 laps of the circuit in the first hour of the session. When he emerged for his second run, the Southwater ace jumped up the timesheets, setting a lap time of 1m11.487s to move into third position, just behind the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and recent Austrian Grand Prix winner, Nico Rosberg.

Working through a busy schedule of development work for the Enstone-based squad, which had been disrupted by limited running yesterday due to rain, Jolyon improved his time in the final hour to post a 1m11.288s, which put him in sixth-position, just over one second adrift of the fastest time of Bottas.

Behind the Williams, Pascal Wehrlein, who produced the quickest time yesterday for Mercedes, was second for Force India with Rosberg's Mercedes in third. Fernando Alonso (McLaren) and Felipe Nasr (Sauber) were fourth and fifth respectively, with Esteban Gutierrez (Ferrari), Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) and Marco Wittmann (Toro Rosso) finishing behind Jolyon in seventh, eighth and ninth.

Jolyon said: "It's nice to be back in the car having driven the E23 Hybrid at the start of the weekend. The morning has gone exactly to plan, we had quite a lot of work to get through including set-up changes and aero work but we got through it all so it's been good."  

The five-hour afternoon session will begin at 12pm UK time.

Austria in-season F1 test, initial morning times:

1. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1m10.029s
2. Pascal Wehrlein, Force India, 1m10.253s
3. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1m10.684s
4. Fernando Alonso, McLaren, 1m11.178s
5. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, 1m11.228s
6. Jolyon Palmer, Lotus F1 Team, 1m11.288s
7. Esteban Gutierrez, Ferrari, 1m11.315s
8. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1m11.466s
9. Marco Wittmann, Toro Rosso, 1m12.941s