William Palmer (born 15 February 1997) is a British Motor racing driver, the son of

Jonathan Palmer Jonathan Charles Palmer (born 7 November 1956) is a British businessman and former Formula One racing driver. Before opting for a career in motor racing, Palmer trained as a physician at London's Guys Hospital. He also worked as a junior phys ...

and brother of Jolyon Palmer. He is a past winner of the

McLaren Autosport BRDC Award The Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award is an award set up in 1989 to reward and recognise young racing drivers from the UK. As its names suggest, the award is backed by Aston Martin, motorsport magazine Autosport, and the British Racing Drivers' Cl ...

. He won the BRDC F4 Championship in 2015 having previously won the 2014 BRDC Formula 4 Winter Championship.

Career

Ginetta Juniors (2011-2013)

A successful 2013 season saw Palmer finish third in the 2013 Ginetta Junior Championship.

BRDC Formula 4 (2013-2015)

Palmer competed in the BRDC Formula 4 Winter Championship in 2013, ahead of graduating to the category for 2014. A promising debut full season in BRDC F4 saw Palmer take two wins and finish sixth in the 2014 overall standings. He followed that up by winning the F4 Winter Championship, taking four wins from eight races. He was nominated for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award and he was named the winner at the Autosport Awards.

2015 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award

After his record-breaking BRDC F4 season, Palmer was nominated for the 2015 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award alongside Jack Aitken, Ben Barnicoat, Jake Hughes, Ricky Collard and Toby Sowery. After two days of assessments at Silverstone, Palmer was named the winner at the Autosport Awards in London, receiving the prize of £100,000, a McLaren F1 test, Arai Carbon helmet and BRDC membership. After the end of the 2016 season, Palmer received his McLaren F1 test for winning the 2015 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award, impressing the team throughout with McLaren simulator test engineer Alice Rowlands commenting that Palmer should be "very happy" with his maiden run in a Grand Prix car. "It's not easy," she added, "he doesn't know anyone and it's a step up from anything he's done before, working with this many engineers. Looking at the data it was clearly someone driving a Formula 1 car properly - not someone that was out for a little afternoon drive around."

Formula Renault 2.0 (2016-17)

For 2016, Palmer graduated to race in Europe and competed in both the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 championship and Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup for the R-ace GP team. He scored five podium finishes over the course of the season and claimed his maiden victory in European racing as he took the chequered flag in the penultimate race of the Eurocup season at Estoril in Portugal. In December 2016, it was announced that Palmer would continue with R-ace GP for the 2017 championships. He finished as runner-up to

Sacha Fenestraz Sacha Fenestraz Jules (born 28 July 1999) is a French-Argentine racing driver currently competing in the Super Formula Championship with Kondō Racing. He is the 2017 Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 champion. Currently, he drives for the Nissan F ...

with wins at

Silverstone Silverstone is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is about from Towcester on the former A43 main road, from the M1 motorway junction 15A and about from the M40 motorway junction 10, Northampton, Milton Keynes and B ...

Monza Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...

and

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

and another seven podiums.

GP3 Series

In April 2018, Palmer signed with

MP Motorsport MP Motorsport (previously Marcel Peters Motorsport) is a Dutch auto racing team currently competing in the FIA Formula 2 Championship. The team has also participated in Auto GP, Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 2.0 Northern Europea ...

for the final season of the sport. He only made one round as he retired from racing in June 2018 to focus on his studies and his work.

Racing record

Career summary

^† As Palmer was a guest driver, he was ineligible for points.

Complete GP3 Series results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Palmer, Will 1997 births Living people People from Horsham English racing drivers Formula Renault Eurocup drivers Formula Renault 2.0 NEC drivers BRDC British Formula 3 Championship drivers GP3 Series drivers Ginetta Junior Championship drivers MP Motorsport drivers R-ace GP drivers ART Grand Prix drivers