Renault satisfied with first day at Turkey and new front wing
The Renault Formula One Team got back to work today after their podium finish at Monaco. At Istanbul Park, the French outfit had a fairly normal Friday as they evaluated a new front wing and did some set-up work to prepare for tomorrow's qualifying session and Sunday's race.
Robert Kubica, R30-03
Free Practice 1: P6, 1:30.061, 23 laps
Free Practice 2: P8, 1:29.225, 33 laps
"This morning the track conditions were not ideal but we did a couple of runs to evaluate the balance of the car and to decide which direction we should take with the set-up. We also did a comparison with the new front wing, which seemed to give us an improvement compared with the previous wing. In the afternoon we mainly concentrated on improving the balance of the car and I did a long run with the option tyre to check the degradation rates. Everything is working pretty well, but we just need to improve the balance a bit more before qualifying."
Vitaly Petrov, R30-02
Free Practice 1: P7, 1:30.065, 24 laps
Free Practice 2: P9, 1:29.501, 35 laps
"I’m pleased to be back here in Istanbul Park because it’s a circuit that I enjoy and I won the GP2 race here last year. The track conditions today were not great to begin with and the track was quite dirty, but it was the same for everybody and hopefully it will improve during the weekend. Overall it was a fairly normal day because we started with a basic set-up and just tried to improve the balance in the morning and the afternoon. The car felt quite good by the end of the day, but we can still improve it, so I will work my engineers tonight to be ready for final practice tomorrow morning."
Technical Debrief with Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer:
Track conditions: "The track here is not used very often so it was quite dusty to begin with, but it had a steady evolution throughout the day."
New updates: "We’ve brought a new front wing here and we ran it this morning with Robert. His feedback was positive, as was the data, so we will continue running it for the rest of the weekend. Vitaly will have the new wing from tomorrow onwards."
Summary of the day: "It’s been a fairly normal Friday for us with no dramas to report. We’ve run both high and low fuel with both tyres compounds and have done some good homework ahead of the race."
General car balance: "Robert had a very good balance with the prime tyre, and not such a good balance on the option tyre, which is something we will look into this evening. Vitaly was suffering with a little bit of understeer which we’re confident of curing over night."
