Palmer: No impact on Grosjean’s GPs

Jolyon Palmer says him being in Romain Grosjean's car in FP1s is "really not" having a negative impact on the Frenchman's season.

To date Grosjean is the only Lotus driver to have scored point, with his eighth-placed finish in Spain bringing his tally up to 12.

However, he's also the only Lotus driver who has had to sit out practice sessions.

Grosjean was forced to miss FP1 in China, Bahrain and Spain.

And although those later all became points-scoring weekends, the Frenchman is not that happy about the fact that he will still have to sit out a further seven while team-mate Pastor Maldonado and PDVSA backing stay in the car.

Palmer, though, doubts his participation is having a negative impact on Grosjean's race weekends.

"I don't know what the effect is so far because I don't know what more he could have done," Palmer told F1i.com. "In the last race he had contact with Pastor which dropped him back a bit but he's done a good job.

"In the Friday's I've done he couldn't have done more in the race, he finished seventh in China, seventh in Bahrain and eighth here. Maybe seventh was possible here, maybe, but it's not been possible to do any more.

"He's not happy because it's never nice to be not driving, I'm quite aware of that because I'm not driving a lot but overall I think he understands and it's really not having an effect at the moment."