Palmer 'excited' for future after Q3 bow

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Jolyon Palmer says he is looking forward to what the future brings after making his long awaited first appearance in the final phase of qualifying for his maiden top ten F1 starting position in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

In a remarkable session-to-session turnaround for the British driver - competing in his second season with Renault - Palmer was 20th and last after FP3 but a rapid effort in both Q1 and Q2 would see him end both knockout phases inside the top ten.

Though a 'scruffy' lap when it mattered in Q3 consigned him to tenth place, Palmer was otherwise thrilled to go the distance in qualifying for the first time after a disappointing start to the year blighted by issues.

"I think China to be honest we could have made it as well, but here we've been really struggling through practice and the car has never been in a sweet spot. Through qualifying we through we knew why and then we made some changes and immediately it was much better.

"So I was in the top ten in Q1, Q2 and in the end I think probably could have had ninth but Nico was really quick today to be fair. So it's definitely good and also from the team point of view it's very good to have two cars in the top ten, and with a lot more upgrades coming it's exciting."

With team-mate Nico Hulkenberg demonstrating Renault's apparently impressive single lap form in seventh place too, Palmer admits he did take advantage of the German's data to find improvements in his car after FP3.

"I made some changes for the supersoft and the car was an absolute nightmare [in FP3] - I was 20th and the car was all over the place and then Nico has just been on a really steady but really quick weekend so we tried to see what they were doing a little bit on the other side of the garage and it certainly helped."

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