Jolyon Palmer confused after 'worst weekend' of career in China

After qualifying 19th at Shanghai on Saturday in what he called a "catastrophically bad" performance, Palmer finished last as all 22 drivers completed the race.

So far Palmer and the team are at a loss to understand where the performance of the RS16 has disappeared to following a solid start in Australia.

"I'm down on aero, but we could only see it in qualifying," Palmer told Autosport.

"There were also some damaged parts in qualifying as well, and we managed to fix half the problem for the race, but I'm missing that aero.

"The safety car [after a tyre blew on Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull on lap three] was definitely not good for the strategy.

"But I think we need to understand what's going on with the car first and then focus on the strategy.

"But overall, for me personally, I think the whole weekend was maybe my worst ever as a racing driver. It's been very bad."

Palmer was at least pleased to complete a grand prix distance after a hydraulic failure meant he could not even take the start of the previous round in Bahrain.

"It's good experience, but a tough experience because it's looking pretty bad," he said.

"I'm sure we'll recover and then it'll be useful experience.

"And I'm still learning. To do a race trying different strategies, using three different compound of tyres, degradation on different axles...

"There's more stuff I'm learning and I've only done two grands prix in my life, so there are positives, but at the moment the negative is that the pace is pretty bad and that's obviously what the whole result comes down to."

Palmer has vowed to leave no stone unturned this week on a visit to the factory in Enstone to try to understand the issues before the next race in Russia.

"I will be pouring through data myself and in the simulator, but basically trying to analyse myself what's going on," he said.