Lotus: Missing FP1 hurting Grosjean's pride more than performance

GP2 champion and Lotus reserve Palmer has driven Grosjean's car in the first Friday practice session at five GPs so far this year and will do so again at every race through to Monza in September at least.

Grosjean has expressed frustration at the impact this has on his race preparations, relative to team-mate Pastor Maldonado, who drives in every session.

But asked if he felt the loss of running was hurting Grosjean, Permane told AUTOSPORT: "I don't think so. A driver of Romain's stature, it may hurt his pride rather than his actual performance.

"Watch his first runs in FP2. It's a little bit of a psychological thing to go out in FP2 and go quicker than Pastor."

Permane admitted that aspects of Lotus's arrangement did not give a good impression.

"There is frustration for Romain of course due to him losing out on some Fridays," he said.

"I suspect that some of the frustrations are because of the image of it and none of us like that.

"We'd much rather be a top team that are super well-funded and that sort of thing but it's not all bad.

"Jolyon gives us excellent feedback through testing and he's very good and calm and very happy to work through it.

"He's a welcome addition to the team."

Palmer is one of only three 'Friday drivers' to appear so far in the 2015 season.

Raffaele Marciello has had three outings with Sauber - which varies which of Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr stands aside - while Susie Wolff has twice driven Valtteri Bottas's Williams on Friday morning.