Interesting day for Renault at Spain
The ING Renault F1 Team continued its winter testing programme today in Barcelona as the team’s regular driver Nelson Piquet was again joined by young Dutchman, Giedo van der Garde. Nelson completed a full day’s work, while Giedo drove for half the day as reward for winning the World Series by Renault earlier this year.
The team worked on a similar programme to yesterday with the main emphasis being data collection and evaluation of the slick Bridgestone tyres. There was also further running with 2009-type set-ups to give the team further information, which will be fed into next year’s car. Giedo enjoyed another strong outing with the team, completing 37 laps and building on the work he completed yesterday. He adapted well to the team’s technical programme and continued to give the engineers valuable feedback.
Nelson will remain in the car tomorrow as the team runs just a single car for the final day of testing.
Nelson Piquet: “It was a similar day to yesterday as we continued learning about the slick tyres and working on the car set-up by trying to simulate next year’s settings. It was a bit cooler than yesterday, but the track conditions were not too bad and we didn’t have any problems with the car, which allowed us to get a good number of laps in. So a positive second day, which we can build on tomorrow.”
Giedo van der Garde: “I’ve had another really enjoyable day working with the team and helping them with their preparations for next year. Towards the end of the morning I had the chance to do a couple of new tyres runs, which helped me build confidence in the car and each time I improved my lap times. We made good progress across the two half days and the team was happy with how things went so overall it has been a very positive experience. I’m grateful to the ING Renault F1 Team for giving me this opportunity.”
Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer: “Another interesting day’s testing, which saw us continue with the work we did yesterday by trying to understand the tyres, as well as some R&D work. We had a good morning running Giedo and he was quite competitive and gave good feedback to the engineers and worked well with the team. Nelson had a busy day jumping between the cars, working on the set-up and collecting basic data on the tyres, so it’s been another productive day for us.”
Nelson Piquet, R28-04, 85 laps, 396 km, fastest lap 1:22.348
Giedo van der Garde, R28-05, 37 laps, 172 km, fastest lap 1:23.250
