It’s hard to make it to Formula One and harder to stay there. Jolyon Palmer, so far without a 2017 contract, can attest to the veracity of this old Formula One adage.
His fledgling Formula One career has comprised 14 free practice sessions with cash-strapped Lotus in 2015 (at approximately £250,000 a pop) and an evolved full-time race seat when the team, staving off the banks and in desperate need of finance, promoted him to replace the outgoing Romain Grosjean for 2016.
The single-year deal, affirmed by Renault when it bought the team at the end of the year, is a statement. Enstone needed cash to rebuild the desperately dilapidated team, but it would only tolerate an all-pay-driver line-up that came packaged with credible talent.
After 15 difficult rounds it comes as no surprise that Renault remains undecided on its 2017 driver pairing, with neither Palmer nor the similarly paying Kevin Magnussen acquitting themselves sufficient to win automatic extension of their racing tenure.
Two leading potential replacements have both turned their noses to at a 2017 Renault drive: Sergio Perez is targeting a single-year renewal with Force India that might keep him in the frame for a Ferrari drive in 2018, as is Romain Grosjean at Haas.
Valtteri Bottas? Likely to be wooed by Williams to play team leader alongside expected debutant teenager Lance Stroll.
Given the dearth of leadership options and its preference for Esteban Ocon, its former reserve driver turned Manor full-timer, to fill one of its seats, Renault may have its hand forced in re-signing one of its current charges.
Assuming Ocon makes it back to Enstone – and assuming neither Carlos Sainz is loaned to or Daniil Kvyat abandoned into the care of the yellow-coloured team – could Palmer mount a case to take the reins and lead the team ahead of Magnussen?
The numbers don’t look good. On qualifying form – excluding Canada, where Magnussen couldn’t take part, and Hungary, where neither driver set a valid time under the 107 per cent rule – Palmer has been off Magnussen’s pace by 0.164 seconds on average, and Palmer bested Magnussen in only three of the representative 13 sessions.
The Briton doesn’t fare much better on race day, either. On the nine occasions both drivers have been classified Magnussen has finished in front on five of them and an average of 1.3 positions ahead.
Saturday and Sunday form considered, the point tally yields no surprises. Magnussen has earnt seven points to date courtesy of seventh-place and tenth-place finishes in Russia and Singapore, whereas Palmer has zero points to his name and a single P11 finish as his best result.
Worse is that, though points have been hard to come in the 2016 Renault car, Palmer lost a golden opportunity to open his account when he spun his car while running confidently in tenth during the Hungarian Grand Prix before finishing dejected in twelfth.
On the numbers it’s hard to argue Palmer has earnt a new deal – but is it fair for Renault, arguably one of the most disappointing constructors of the season, to ditch it struggling rookie?
Palmer has by no means disgraced himself in his first campaign, and to debut into a team transitioning from the brink of collapse into the hands of a manufacturer is far from an ideal induction.
There are glimmers of improvements, too: two of his three teammate-beating qualifying performances have come in the last four rounds, and his brush with points in Hungary was just before the midseason break.
Is it enough?
For the answer he need look no further than the other side of the garage – Magnussen is living contemporary evidence that potential isn’t and shouldn’t be sufficiently persuasive.
Magnussen’s unexpected demotion to McLaren reserve driver after a single promising but generally uneventful year – and likewise Sergio Perez’s sole season at Woking one year earlier – is testament to the fact that one chance is all a driver can hope for among the leagues of Formula One’s big beasts.
Though ninth in the constructors standings belies it, Renault is one of those big beasts. It thinks like one and acts like one, and it can only be a matter of time until one of the world’s significant car manufacturers starts delivering suitably significant results. There’s no room for sentiment in this environment, only those contending to be the best in the business.
Rough though it may be to say of the 25-year-old debutant, but that doesn’t sound like him.
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