D'Ambrosio and Charouz in action at Silverstone

The Renault Formula One Demo Team came in action at the historic Silverstone circuit today for the first shakedown of the season. One month ago, the team already came to the British track with the same purpose, but ice and snow changed the plans of the French outfit.

On driving duty today were two of the team's new recruits, Jerome D’Ambrosio and Jan Charouz, both reserve drivers for the team. Both men came in action with the R29 to get their first F1 miles under their belt, a big and important landmark in the career of the youngsters.

Renault's representative reports: "We’re quite limited with what we can do today as we can only run 100km. Each driver is only allowed 20 laps, and we’re only running on the national circuit, which at 1.6 miles is half the length of the proper Grand Prix circuit. But Silverstone is Silverstone and I can’t think of a better place for our rookies to be experiencing F1 power for the first time. I had the chance to do lap of the track in a road car with Jerome earlier, which was fun. We also sampled some of the new section of track that will be used in this year’s British Grand Prix."

The R29's were repainted in the new yellow-black colour scheme of the team, forgetting about the orange and blue that were additionally on the cars in 2009.