BRDC Formula 4 champion Palmer moving to Formula Renault with ART

Palmer dominated the BRDC Formula 4 Championship last season with 12 wins from 24 races, and will contest both Eurocup and NEC campaigns in full - which will include a visit to Monaco as part of the Formula 1 grand prix weekend.

The 18-year-old has previous experience of Formula Renault machinery, having raced with ART in the Eurocup rounds at Silverstone in 2015.

"I think by doing both campaigns I get a lot of racing so that's a lot of time to learn and improve - and also just learn a lot of European circuits," Palmer told Autosport.

"By doing NEC as well, between the two I'll be doing pretty much every European F1 track which will be helpful for whatever I do in the future.

"I've known ART since I did the wildcard round at Silverstone when I did the Eurocup and I got on really well with them then.

"They seemed like a great team and we've been having discussions for the last couple of months for next year and in the end it turned out to be the best option - they've got a very good engineering base and they're a great team of people.

"I'm sure they'll be able to provide me with a car capable of fighting for wins."

Palmer had more than one test in European Formula 3 machinery during the winter, while he also sampled GP3 cars - again with ART as well as Arden and DAMS - in the post season series test as part of his prize for clinching BRDC F4 honours.

But pointing to the domination of leading team Prema in Formula 3 in recent years, Palmer felt that his Formula Renault move was a wiser one in the interest of his future career prospects.

"The main thing for me is looking at the long-term picture," he said.

"Realistically doing Formula 3 you need to be with Prema to win it, which does make it difficult to move into a series like that when these seats are so hard to get and it's so expensive as well for the budget.

"I think it's better to do a championship where I can really fight for victories and for the championship straight away, which I wasn't sure I'd be able to do in Formula 3 given the situation with teams and as well.

"It's a very tough championship for rookies so I felt like given the extra racing I get with Formula Renault it's a better platform to launch into other series."

Palmer will line up against fellow Briton Lando Norris, who won the rival MSA Formula title last season, the 16-year-old having agreed to race with Josef Kaufmann Racing in November of last year.