Successful first day for Renault at Catalunya

The Renault F1 Team is back on track this week for three days in Barcelona, to continue its testing and development programme. At the wheel of the R26, Fernando Alonso and Heikki Kovalainen prepared the forthcoming European races and particularly on preparations for the Spanish GP in less than four weeks’ time.

As conditions were close to what we can expect for the Spanish GP, the team worked to analyse the behaviour of the R26/RS26 package for the Spanish event on 14 May.

Fernando Alonso, who will be driving for two days this week (today and tomorrow), worked on set up and tyre development. His programme was interrupted by electronic problems, which meant he completed a restricted number of laps, but these will be resolved for tomorrow.

Heikki Kovalainen completed significant mileage as he worked through his programme to assist the team’s race preparation. He also focused on set-up and tyre development during his first day of running this week.

The Finn will be back in action on Friday, with Giancarlo Fisichella driving alongside Fernando Alonso tomorrow.

Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer “We made good progress today with Heikki’s car. He adapted to the car and circuit quickly morning, which was important as he had not tested here for quite a while. We confirmed the set-up improvements we had found in previous tests, and he got through a lot of tyre work. Fernando was also very productive in the laps he was able to run. Electrical problems limited his running, but we nevertheless had a positive day overall.”