Renault F1 team feels sorry for Palmer after Russian GP problems

Renault Formula 1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul "feels sorry" for Jolyon Palmer and his team after the British driver's mechanical problems over the Russian Grand Prix weekend.

Palmer's difficult start to 2017 continued at Sochi with an exhaust problem in second practice that burned the car and required an overnight chassis change.

He then suffered mysterious loss of engine power at the start of FP3 that meant Renault swapped his engine for qualifying, in which Palmer crashed out of Q1.

Palmer was then taken out of the race in a first-lap clash with Romain Grosjean and remains without a point this season with a best finish 13th.

While Palmer took responsibility for the Q1 crash, Abiteboul said "we feel extremely sorry" for the reliability problems he has endured.

"I should make a special mention for Jo's team," he told Autosport.

"We had a number of issues to solve on the car, changing chassis, changing engine, the shunt in qualifying.

"I feel sorry for Jo and the group of people behind him who did a remarkable job over the weekend.

"When you change chassis and change engine you have all the reasons in the world to have problems, but we did not have a single operational problem, so I want to give a huge credit to the guys."

The FIA investigated Palmer's crash with Grosjean, which occurred when the Haas driver tried to pass the Renault into Turn 2 after the start, but deemed neither driver was at fault.

Abiteboul said it would have been avoided had Palmer not crashed in qualifying.

"If you look at his whole weekend he did one mistake, which was his mistake in Q1," he said.

"He would have been easily in Q2, we could see that in terms of sector times.

"If he had been in Q2 he wouldn't have been in the sort of position where there is always something happening, and something happened in Turn 2.

"Looking at the data it was obvious there was nothing he could have done to avoid that incident.

"So we left with a lot of frustration for Jo from one single mistake in a very difficult environment for him."

Palmer said after the race he was looking forward to a "reset" ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix on May 14.

Abitbeoul wants the 26-year-old to take encouragement from the form of Nico Hulkenberg, who scored Renault's best result of the season in Russia with eighth and bagged points for the second race in a row.

"He needs to feel that he's in a team that has the capacity to deliver this type of performance," said Abiteboul.

"This performance is not just for Nico, we are not a one-man band, and he [Palmer] has to be part of it.

"We need Jo to score points, so there is absolutely no doubt in our commitment to him."