Jolyon Palmer confident ahead of GP2 curtain-raiser with Max Chilton’s former team

The 22 year old ace will be making his debut for the Carlin Motorsport team, alongside Brazilian team-mate Felipe Nasr after making the switch from iSport International at the end of last year.

Jolyon is thought to be amongst the title favourites after an accomplished second season in the F1 feeder series last year, which included two podiums and a victory at the showpiece Monaco event in May.

Whilst pre-season testing in Spain has been badly disrupted by rain, the Carlin team ran competitively throughout and Jolyon topped the opening session in Jerez last month.

He said: “I’m very much looking forward to Malaysia, it was a place I really liked last year although the results didn’t do us justice.”

“After pre-season testing this is where we will see exactly where everyone is performance wise, and I’m confident Carlin is looking in very good shape.

“The tyres will no doubt play a very interesting part to the weekend; getting the best out of them in qualifying will be crucial, but also preserving them in the races will be equally important.

“Now I’m just waiting to get started and preparing myself as best I can.”

And Jolyon has every reason to be confident, his predecessor at Carlin, Max Chilton, made his Formula 1 debut last weekend at the Australian Grand prix for Marussia, finishing 17th.

The weekend’s two races take place today (Saturday) and tomorrow.