Palmer rubbishes Ocon rumours

Palmer has made four grand prix appearances for Renault so far, but only has three starts to his name, having had to sit out the Bahrain race due to technical issues on the car.

While he had outraced highly-rated Kevin Magnussen in Melbourne, the Dane's upturn in pace since then, combined with Palmer's mixed recent form, have brought on suggestions that Renault considered promoting Ocon to a race seat at the Brit's expense.

In Barcelona, Palmer categorically denied these suggestions, confirming he was contracted with Renault for the whole season.

"I don't know where that rumour came from, to be honest," Palmer said on Thursday.

"It doesn't faze me. I saw already after Bahrain that someone said something - I had one race in Melbourne that was quite good and I didn't even race in Bahrain. Whatever.

"I've only had four races and it's been mixed results, but I think I'm looking forward to the future."

Palmer also downplayed the effect of those reports on his own mindset, saying that such happenings came with the territory of racing in Formula 1.

"It's what I've come to expect, really. It's Formula 1. I've seen it from the outside and now I've seen it from the inside.

"Honestly, I was a bit surprised after Bahrain... but, yeah, China obviously was a very tough weekend.

"But I don't really care, ultimately.  I know where I stand, in the team everyone knows where we stand."

Ocon will make his grand prix weekend debut with Renault in FP1 in Spain - and will also run in the test after the race.

Kvyat example different

Four races into the new season, Formula 1 has already seen a driver change, with Red Bull promoting Max Verstappen to the main team and demoting Daniil Kvyat to Toro Rosso.

While Palmer admitted Kvyat's demotion came as a surprise, the Brit insisted his situation was completely different.

"[The demotion] surprises me because he was doing quite a good job and he'd got a podium," Palmer conceded. "At the end of last year, he seemed to be quite closely matched with [Daniel] Ricciardo. [But] he's had a slightly harder start to this season.

"It doesn't worry me - it's a different team, a different situation, they're all contracted with Red Bull, I guess, and he's still in Formula 1, but with a different team."

Additional reporting by Oleg Karpov