Kovalainen tops the times at Jerez

The Renault F1 Team is back in southern Spain to make its final preparations for the end of the season, in order to recapture its world championship lead. And there’s no secret to doing so, just lots of hard work! The Renault F1 Team thus began a three-day programme at Jerez this rmoning, focusing primarily on tyre selection for the final races of the season.

This was Heikki Kovalainen’s primary responsibility today. Working with Michelin, the Finn worked with the Chinese Grand Prix in mind. He completed his programme without any problems and finished the day top of the timesheets with a lap of 1:17.236 and 102 laps covered.

Jose Maria Lopez worked on a set-up programme with the R26 as well as brake development – far from the most interesting job a test driver can be given, but crucially important for the upcoming races. He completed a total of 94 laps and set third best time in 1:17.617.

It was a productive day, as Chief Test Engineer Christian Silk confirmed: “We have enjoyed a good first day at the test. We were expecting dirty track conditions that was changing all the way through the day, but this didn’t prove to be the case. Conditions were good immediately which allowed us to make good progress with our tyre testing. Heikki and Jose both put in a good day’s work.”

Testing will continue tomorrow with Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella.