Jolyon Palmer and Pascal Wehrlein progressed through the opening round of the Race of Champions Nations Cup at London's former Olympic Stadium tonight (Friday), as their Team Young Stars squad defeated the Team All Stars line up of Romain Grosjean and Sir Chris Hoy.

In the best-of-three contest, 2015 DTM Champion Wehrlein took on six-time Olympic cycling gold medallist Hoy in the opening match and comfortably beat the 39-year-old. In KTM X-bows, Wehrlein made a strong start and led after the opening lap by nearly one second. On the second and final tour of the pursuit-style circuit, Hoy lost a similar amount of time to the young German and Wehrlein took victory by 1.87s at the line.

Jolyon then faced his fellow Lotus F1 Team driver Romain Grosjean as the pair took to the track in the powerful Mercedes-AMG GT S cars. Both racers pushed hard on the opening lap and little separated the pair as they came across the line for the first time, with the Frenchman only slightly ahead. However, as Jolyon looked to find every bit of time he could, his Mercedes ran over a kerb and punctured his tyre, effectively ending the contest on the spot and allowing Grosjean to claim victory.

That left a head-to-head shoot-out between Wehrlein and Grosjean to see which team would progress into the quarter-finals. In the Radical SR3 RSX cars, Wehrlein made the best start and led by half-a-second after the first lap. He only added to his advantage on the second tour and he took the chequered flag 0.917s clear of Haas F1-bound Grosjean, sending Team Young Stars through to the next round.

In the quarter-finals Jolyon and Pascal will face the England 1 team, which comprises British Touring Car legends Jason Plato and Andy Priaulx. 

You can follow Jolyon's progress on Sky Sports F1 and www.autosport.com across the weekend.