Alonso fastest during first day at Paul Ricard

In the sunny climes of the south of France, the Renault F1 Team today began a three day testing programme at Paul Ricard circuit, with Fernando Alonso and Heikki Kovalainen running in the R26 this week.

With the track in “Monaco” configuration, the Renault drivers naturally worked on preparations for the Monaco GP.

After a few set up changes this morning, Fernando Alonso focused on tyre testing during the afternoon to finalize the tyre selection for the next race.

Heikki Kovalainen today ran with the brand new R26-06 chassis, in which he initially conducted basic systems checks. He then began his development programme which was mainly composed of general tyre testing.

At the end of the day, Fernando Alonso had set the fastest laptime in 1’05.686, while his teammate completed a mammoth total of 174 laps on his way to the fourth-fastest laptime of the session in 1’05.889.

Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer “Our first day was very positive: we were able to follow our programme without any problem and we identified some interesting solutions. We worked on the preparation for Monaco and especially on the tyre testing. We covered a lot of laps, we were quick and we made good progress on both cars. It was a good day of testing.”