Jolyon Palmer heads to the Shanghai International Circuit in China this weekend (10-12 April) as he competes in a Formula One session on a Grand Prix weekend for the first time. He will participate in Free Practice One for Lotus F1 Team on Friday as part of his role as Third and Reserve Driver for the Enstone-based squad.

2014 GP2 Champion Jolyon, who will take part in a significant number of further FP1 sessions throughout the course of the season, last drove the E23 Hybrid at Barcelona in February as he completed 77 laps at the official pre-season Formula One test at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The 90-minute session begins at 10:00am (03:00am GMT+1) and will be broadcast live on Sky Sports F1 in the UK. He will then move from the track to the commentary booth to provide analysis for Sky's coverage of Free Practice Two.

Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Principal of Lotus F1 Team, said: "Jolyon is a crucial part of the team for this season so it was important for us to see him in the car over the course of a Grand Prix early in the year. For the first two races, it made sense for our race drivers to get as much time as possible in the car, but now we can start exercising some of Jolyon's talents in the FP1 session and we'll see him out in action quite a few times over the course of the year."

Jolyon added: "It will be my first time driving an F1 car on a Grand Prix weekend so I'm really excited and looking forward to Friday's Free Practice One session. Hopefully I can get a clean run and see what I can do in my first drive in the car since the Barcelona test. The team as a whole are looking to get our first points of the year and hopefully this should be possible if we can shake off a bit of bad luck this weekend."

Free Practice One gets underway at 3am UK time on Friday 10 April. You can follow all the action on Sky F1's HD Channel and here on Jolyon's official website.