Palmer deserves ‘world class championship’ drive

Editor

Jolyon Palmer may have been dropped by Renault but the French manufacturer still believes in his talent with Cyril Abiteboul saying he deserved a “world class championship” drive.

Struggling for the second successive season to score points, Palmer was dropped by Renault ahead of the 2017 United States GP in favour of Carlos Sainz.

The move signalled the end of the Brit’s time in Formula 1 while as yet there has been no news about a possible 2018 drive in another series.

Renault, though, reckon that whatever is next for Palmer should see the former GP2 champion racing in a “world class” series.

“I think it’s fair to say Jo and his family are not in complete control of the next steps and their future,” Abiteboul told Motorsport.com.

“We did try to look at options, which I don’t want to detail publicly, but I don’t think Jonathan or Jo would challenge the fact we’ve been extremely helpful – the best we could.

“Anything we can do to help Jo we will do, because I really think he deserves to be in a world class championship.

“The avenues we explored have not worked out so far, but we will see – Renault is a large family in motorsports, we have a number of activities, so we will see what the future can hold for everyone.”

The Renault F1 managing director touched on rumours linking Palmer to Renault’s Formula E team, a move that never came to fruition.

“I think there was maybe a timing issue,” he said.

“Maybe we could have developed something if there could have been an earlier buying into the process from all involved, but that’s not happened so far.”