The F1 driver who deserves a lot more credit

Perception is worth an awful lot in motorsport. Where a driver ends up in terms of ability can mean less to some people than how they got there. Some drivers seem destined for the top, whereas others can be written off early.

Being on the wrong side of that divide will invariably impact on opinions of them should they ever reach Formula 1 - and usually it sticks throughout their career.

Jolyon Palmer is a fascinating and fantastic example of this. The Briton has landed a second season in Formula 1 with Renault. It is deserved - not that critics of the 25-year-old would have you believe that.

Whether you think he has the capacity to be a potential frontrunner, race winner or world champion in F1 or not, he has earned a sophomore campaign. His progression has been clear to see over his rookie season, one that has taken place in a challenging environment.

In recent races he has outperformed team-mate Kevin Magnussen. A quick comparison of Autosport's most recent driver ratings is telling. Palmer scored 8, 9, 7 and 8 for his efforts in the Malaysian, Japanese, US and Mexican Grands Prix respectively. Magnussen matched him in Malaysia and the US, but was roundly outperformed over the other two weekends.

And yet a lot of the reaction to the latest driver market twist has read like 'Magnussen's better, he's gone to Haas and Renault has no choice but Palmer'. Well, if it were that simple, Renault's bigwigs would not have dragged their heels and Magnussen would have been signed before Singapore in September, as he initially expected.

And even if Palmer did find himself a few places down the shortlist, that's probably symptomatic of the issue in question here. Palmer's own take on why Renault kept him on is that "clearly the recent form is the biggest thing and it's been getting better and better". But that doesn't seem to matter an awful lot to those who have put him in the same bracket as Will Stevens and Max Chilton, the two most recent British F1 debutants before Palmer entered the frame.

It seems a big part of that is down to Palmer's route to the top; that he's paying the price for not looking 'mega' early on in his racing career. And this is always an issue when trying to evaluate potential.

Palmer's background - his ex-Formula 1 driver father Jonathan's done quite well for himself after hanging up his helmet and turning to the UK circuit business - meant he has not exactly been short on resources. But his early motorsport education did him fewer favours than it should have done, and for a long time he looked decidedly average - at best.

After little karting of note, Palmer spent six years in his father's car-racing championships. A 2005 T Cars Autumn Trophy campaign was followed by a full campaign in '06, then two years in Formula Palmer Audi as single-seaters beckoned. He was on course for a top-five finish in the championship in his first season, but slipped to 10th after missing the final two rounds following a near-fatal quad bike accident.

The next year he was third in FPA behind Jason Moore and Tom Bradshaw (good drivers, by the way, but you are forgiven if they mean nothing to you).

After that came an underwhelming step up to Formula 2. He was 21st as a rookie, with one points finish, before a massively improved sophomore campaign in which Dean Stoneman beat him to the title.

That was Palmer's pre-GP2 education, one that (not necessarily deliberately) avoided series with stronger drivers and cars that allowed drivers to learn more about set-up work and engineering. It was lopsided at best, detrimental at worst.

"Jolyon's had it pretty tough actually," his father told Autosport in an interview earlier this year. "Those championships didn't have the pedigree that the established championships had and there's no doubt that that has been a handicap."

The upshot was Palmer arriving in GP2 undercooked. He made little impact with Arden in 2011, but the team itself had a season to forget and Palmer's efforts as a rookie were not bad in the circumstances.

The important thing is he persevered. Palmer was a race winner in his second GP2 season, and progressed to 11th in the championship. That became seventh in 2013, with two wins. And then, under the guidance of DAMS, which has a rich history of helping drivers realise their potential, he was a dominant and deserving champion in '14.

Magnussen's path was different to Palmer's. He kicked off his career in ADAC Formula Masters in Germany and Formula Ford in Denmark (plus some one-off European outings) in 2008.

Then came a dual Formula Renault Eurocup/Northern European Cup campaign in 2009, followed by German Formula 3 (plus victory in a one-off Euro Series appearance) in '10 and British F3 in '11. By the time he was in Formula Renault 3.5 he was a McLaren junior, and he followed up a race-winning rookie season with the title in 2013 - also under the guidance of DAMS.

The point is Magnussen's progression as a driver has been very linear, undoubtedly aided by a conventional path to the top - Palmer, by contrast, has a learning curve that spikes hugely in more recent seasons.

Of course, Magnussen has needed the ability to win in every category he's raced in and this is absolutely not a case of finding a stick to beat the Dane with. He has been highly-rated for a long time, and rightly so.

Magnussen deserved better than to get the boot from F1 after one season at McLaren, in which he compared favourably against Jenson Button (including a podium finish on his debut).

Opposite Button, Magnussen probably suffered by performing well against a driver who is fundamentally underrated. The 2009 world champion did not blow the rookie away, but instead of that being seen as a considerable positive on Magnussen's part it was arguably seen more as a black mark against Button.

Two years later, the opposite's happened at Renault. When Palmer's done well against Magnussen, there's been a feeling that Magnussen has underdelivered.

Perhaps instead it's time to give Palmer the credit he deserves. Maybe it's natural to gravitate towards those who seem destined for the top rather than those who graft to get there, but there's an argument that a driver who achieves the latter has accomplished something greater.

It's wrong that some people choose to devalue achievement through effort, or rate it poorly in comparison to natural talent. It took Palmer until his eighth season to win a single-seater title. So what? Magnussen didn't have a major honour until his sixth - he's still regarded as a driver with bags of ability.

There's a psychological theory, developed by the Stanford professor Dr Carol Dweck, that splits people into growth and fixed mindsets. Palmer's approach to improving as a racing driver embodies the growth mindset - an understanding that his abilities can be honed through effort and persistence.

Palmer had a lot of learning to do when he reached GP2, but he did it. He's had some low points in his rookie F1 season, not least crashing at the start of the Monaco GP after a tricky weekend and spinning away a rare point-scoring opportunity in Hungary, but he has picked himself up.

"This year was a great chance to show what I could do," he insists. "I've done that, and I'm sure the team's going to move forward. So I'm setting my sights higher and I want to be the best I can - I want to get on the podium for the first time, win a race.

"The team is growing as much as I'm growing and hopefully next year's going to be a big step for me again."

That desire to improve has been the hallmark of progression that will surely have impressed Renault, particularly as for all of Magnussen's speed questions remain over his work ethic.

Perhaps, for Magnussen, there's an element of the fixed mindset - that talent trumps effort - at play. Success has often come early wherever he has gone, such as that podium on his McLaren debut, or a shock seventh at Sochi this year with Renault.

Does he fail to push himself to the next level when a particular goal has been reached? Does he need to be prodded into action more often not? Does he acknowledge the finer details that can unlock greater levels of performance? His natural ability is clear, but his seasons have plateaued more than once.

With Palmer, the improvement has not stopped. Yes, in the modern age of F1, drivers have more at their disposal to achieve that. It's a criticism sometimes levelled at Nico Rosberg, for example, that he utilises the data available to be as quick (and sometimes quicker) than Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton, despite being regarded as fundamentally a slower driver.

But it shouldn't be a criticism, because it's part of the toolbox of the modern grand prix driver. Palmer may not be - may never be - even at Rosberg's level, but he's done a very, very good job to turn himself into the calibre of driver he is now.

His GP2 success coming as a fourth-year driver in the series unfairly left him cast as a category veteran who has stepped up to F1 because of his money. There's no hiding Palmer's initial opportunity to be a Formula 1 driver came about through good backing and a good contract when he signed to be the then-Lotus team's test driver for 2015.

But to write off his second season with Renault as an extension of that - or worse, because there are no other options - does an enormous disservice to someone who is now a grand prix driver on merit and is a model of hard work and tenacity.

Ultimately it doesn't matter how good you look as a rising star if you never deliver. And that works in reverse too. The perception of Palmer as an unspectacular driver on the ladder to F1 should pale in comparison to the driver he has actually become.

Even if he's not a world champion in the making, he's come a damn sight closer than the early years suggested was likely. He's a feeder series champion who has put the work in to justify his place in F1, as well as a quick and hard racer who is not afraid to speak his mind.

There is need for further improvement, of course. Some might expect Nico Hulkenberg to blow him into the weeds in 2017, but the same people probably thought similar of Magnussen coming into this season.

Palmer's worthy of the chance he's been given to show what he's capable of with a more competitive package. You might reckon he'll do nothing with it, but he should be getting used to proving there's more about him than people think.