Renault start Brazilian GP weekend on top
The Renault F1 Team completed a busy day of practice in Sao Paulo in preparation for this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso ended the day on top and thereby displayed a good set-up start to the weekend.
Fernando Alonso, R2904:
Free practice 1: 28 laps, 1:13.787, P16
Free Practice 2: 27 laps, 1:12.314, P1
“Today wasn’t easy because the weather conditions were changing all the time. That made it difficult to concentrate on the set-up of the car, but in the end we did some good runs with positive results and hopefully tomorrow we can continue this good work. I think that the weather will be the key to this weekend so we need to react quickly to any changes and be flexible. We have a very interesting weekend ahead of us and hopefully we can maximise the work that we do tomorrow morning so that we are in good shape for qualifying.”
Romain Grosjean, R2903
Free practice 1: 23 laps, 1:14.173, P20
Free Practice 2: 27 laps, 1:12.806, P11
“The day has gone quite well but the weather has been so unpredictable. We still managed to make made good progress and tomorrow morning I will continue working hard to improve my times. This was my first experience of the Interlagos circuit and it’s a great place, although it isn’t easy and the track has lots of uphill and downhill sections which are challenging. Tomorrow I need to continue learning the track as well as completing my preparations for qualifying and the race on Sunday.”
Bob Bell, Team Principal:
“Today the whole field was very closely matched and at the end of practice there was only a second covering all the cars. In the afternoon Fernando was fastest and Romain was only half a second down in P11. The major problem today was the lack of grip, which I think everybody suffered with, but overall the balance of our car wasn’t too bad. During the day we made a few changes which brought some good results and we also have a reasonable understanding of the performance of the tyres. So we are in good shape now in terms of knowing what to do for the race, but we still need to find some more grip.”
