Renault to fit more improvements to the car tomorrow
The ING Renault F1 Team completed a busy day of free practice at the Shanghai International Circuit in preparation for this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix. Despite struggling to find the right set-up, Fernando Alonso still has high hopes for the weekend.
Fernando Alonso: Free practice 1: 19 laps, 1:38.089 on lap 5, P9 Run 1: 7 laps, hard tyres Run 2: 5 laps, same hard tyres, change to weight distribution Run 3: 6 laps, same hard tyres, change to weight distribution, change to front wing
Free Practice 2: 28 laps, 1:37.638 on lap 18, P19
Run 1: 5 laps, new set of hard tyres, new gear box ratios
Run 2: 6 laps, same set of hard tyres, change to front suspension
Run 3: 5 laps, same set of hard tyres, change to front suspension
Run 4: 7 laps, new set of soft tyres
Run 5: 5 laps, new set of soft tyres, change to front wing.
Fernando: "Although we are at the bottom of the timesheets, I don't think we should be too worried as we concentrated more on race configuration today. Tomorrow morning in the third free practice session we will be preparing for qualifying and so I think we can remain optimistic for the rest of the weekend. We need to try to reach Q3, as we did in Malaysia, and aim to score as many points as possible. I think overall today we struggled to find the right set-up, but even looking at the times, we still have high hopes for this weekend."
Nelson Piquet:
Free practice 1: 20 laps, 1:38.825 on lap 19, P20
Run 1: 8 laps, hard tyres
Run 2: 7 laps, same set of hard tyres, new settings to rear springs and front wing
Run 3: 4 laps, same set of hard tyres, change to weight distribution
Free Practice 2: 36 laps, 1:37.273 on lap 34, P16
Run 1: 4 laps, set of used hard tyres, new gear box ratios
Run 2: 12 laps, new set of hard tyres
Run 3: 12 laps, new set of soft tyres
Run 4: 4 laps, same set of soft tyres, change to ride height front and rear, change to front wing
Run 5: 4 laps, new set of soft tyres
Nelson: "The track conditions were quite poor early on but later in the day things were a bit better. We improved the car between the two sessions, but we still need to find more performance and I'm still not totally happy with the set-up. So we still have a lot of work to do tomorrow morning to make sure we get the most from qualifying."
Technical Debrief with Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
Track conditions: "The track was a bit dusty this morning to start with, but it soon picked up."
Chassis balance: "The car has a little bit of oversteer, but we worked on the balance of the car and made some improvements."
Tyre performance: "The super-soft tyre is performing better than we expected. The medium tyre still remains the better race tyre."
Problems encountered: "We haven't encountered any particular problems today. "
Outlook for the rest of the weekend: "Clearly there is work to do but we have more improvements to fit to the car tomorrow. So we are hopeful of moving up the order. "
