Alonso tries different set-ups at Monza

The ING Renault F1 Team remained in Monza today as Fernando Alonso took over the R28 for the first of two days work with the team this week. The perfect track conditions allowed the team to continue with the evaluation of its new low downforce aero package.

Fernando initially worked on improving the set-up in the morning before attention shifted to testing braking solutions in the afternoon.

It was another productive day, with Fernando completing 95 laps, showing good reliability and gathering lots of valuable information. The Spaniard remains in the car for the final day of testing tomorrow when the team will complete its programme.

Fernando Alonso (R28-04)
95 laps, 550km, fastest lap 1:23.606
"It was a busy day as we tried lots of different settings on the car to try and improve the overall balance. Once we were happy with the basic set-up, we did some work on the brakes as this circuit is very demanding in that area. We found out some interesting things and learnt quite a lot about how the car behaves with low downforce. The track conditions were not too bad and it was quite consistent, which is always useful when you are testing."

Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer: "It was Fernando's first day of running and again we had good reliability from the car, which was pleasing because the engineers could get straight down to the programme without any interruptions. We had quite a long test list to get through today, looking at aerodynamic tweaks, brake testing and some set-up work. The results look quite encouraging and have given us good direction for tomorrow."