Jolyon Palmer makes his FP1 debut in China this weekend as third and reserve driver for Lotus.

2014 GP2 champion Palmer, who will take part in a significant number of further FP1 sessions throughout the course of the season, last drove the E23 at Barcelona (right) in February, completing 77 laps on his way to posting the eighth best time of the day.

"It will be my first time driving an F1 car on a Grand Prix weekend so I'm really excited and looking forward to Friday's session," said Palmer. "Hopefully I can get a clean run and see what I can do in my first drive in the car since the Barcelona test. The team as a whole are looking to get our first points of the year and hopefully this should be possible if we can shake off a bit of bad luck this weekend."

"Jolyon is a crucial part of the team for this season so it was important for us to see him in the car over the course of a Grand Prix early in the year," added deputy team principal, Federico Gastaldi. "For the first two races, it made sense for our race drivers to get as much time as possible in the car, but now we can start exercising some of Jolyon’s talents in the FP1 session and we’ll see him out in action quite a few times over the course of the year."