Jolyon Palmer will have a new chassis made available to him at the Spanish Grand Prix next weekend Renault Sport F1 have confirmed.

After replacing the floor of Jolyon’s R.S.16 at the Russian Grand Prix, Palmer has reported improved balance with the car, it is hoped that switching to the team’s 3rd chassis will yeild further progress

“Jolyon was much happier in his car on Saturday in Sochi and this translated to a stronger performance over the weekend. As part of our assessments to get his car to work better for him we changed the floor, which is a very important aerodynamic aspect of the car. This looks to have delivered what we wanted so a positive step was made. For Spain Jolyon will run with a new chassis – R.S.16-03 which we used at our filming day this week to shake down.”

Confirmed Technical Director Nick Chester. In addition to the new chassis the team will be bringing a series of other updates

“For the race we have an updated rear wing as well as some updates for the front wing”

Finally Nick confirmed the test will be trialling the B-Spec Renault Power unit at the 2 day post race test following the test:

“For the test we have a full raft of things to try; new suspension, further aero updates over various areas of the car, some mods to cooling as well as evaluating the B-spec power unit, so we should have a full two days”

Team Racing Director Fred Vasseur has moved to provide assurances around the team’s racing line up, acknowledging the challenges both the team and drivers are facing in this phase of rebuilding:

Despite this confidence Vasseur went on to confirm that Esteban Ocon, completing in the opening round of the DTM this weekend with Mercedes will sit in for Palmer in FP1 of the Spanish Grand Prix, and that he will test alongside Magnussen in the post race test: