Jolyon Palmer set the 15th fastest time in Free Practice One for the Mexican Grand Prix today (Friday), continuing in his duties as Third and Reserve Driver with Lotus F1 team as he prepares for his recently-announced promotion to a race seat with the Enstone-based outfit for the 2016 season. The 24-year-old was driving in the first Formula One World Championship session to take place at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City since 1992.

Conditions were primarily clear at the start of the 90-minute session on the redeveloped 2.67-mile circuit, though the track surface remained slightly damp as Jolyon, along with the majority of the field, left the pit-lane for initial installation runs on intermediate Pirelli tyres.

Following another brief foray onto the drying track in the E23 Hybrid, Jolyon left the garage to set his first flying lap with just over 45 minutes remaining of the session, equipped with a set of medium compound Pirelli slick tyres, setting an early time of 1m34.774s to post the 16th fastest time. Jolyon continued to improve on the next tour, creeping into the top-ten with a vastly improved effort of 1m31.160s, before rising yet again to seventh position with personal best times in all three sectors.

Jolyon surged to the top of the standings with his fourth lap of the run, setting three more personal best sector times to pull three-tenths clear of Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo with a time of 1m29.163s.

The quick times continued to flow later in the run too, with another improvement coming several laps later as he improved by a further four-tenths-of-a-second with a 1m28.711s, which would remain his fastest time of the session, before he returned to the pits with 27 minutes still on the clock.

Jolyon returned to the track for the final time, once again on the medium compound Pirelli slick tyre, with eight minutes remaining, setting personal best times in the first and final sectors, ahead of a final return to the garage in the last minute of the session.

Jolyon commented: "It was a good session despite some difficult conditions. It's always nice to learn a new track and I really enjoyed driving it. The circuit flows nicely and it was very slippery but good fun. We managed to get through a reasonable programme still, which puts us in a decent position for the weekend."

Lotus F1 Team Trackside Operations Director Alan Permane Said: "As expected Jolyon delivered everything we wanted of him in FP1. Learning a new circuit is an interesting challenge for any driver, especially when it's a completely new track layout for all of us. The session started with dampness on the track so we concentrated our efforts to later on when it was much drier. It's always nice to see your driver's name at the top of the timing screens during the course of a session, even though it's the position at the end of the session that matters. We saw pretty much every driver go off or spin at some point whilst learning the circuit, but we've enjoyed a productive FP1."

Mexican Grand Prix Free Practice One Results
1, M Verstappen, STR, 1m25.990s
2, D Kvyat, Red Bull Racing, +0.305s
3, K Raikkonen, Ferrari, +0.305s
4, S Vettel, Ferrari, +0.305s
5, D Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing, +0.896
6, N Rosberg, Mercedes, +1.195s
7, V Bottas, Williams, +1.206s
8, C Sainz, STR, +1.313s
9, S Perez, Force India, +1.591s
15, J Palmer, Lotus, +2.721s