Renault happy about second day at Bahrain

The ING Renault F1 Team today continued testing at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain, ahead of the first race of the season on 18 March in Melbourne. Heikki Kovalainen and Nelson Piquet Jr continued with the technical programmes begun yesterday. After working on endurance testing and race simulations during he first day, the two Renault drivers focused on set-up changes and tyre testing with technical partner Bridgestone.

Although the drivers completed fewer laps than yesterday, both drivers completed their programmes without any difficulty. The data will be analysed overnight to allow the drivers to make further progress tomorrow on the final day of testing.

On the second day of testing, the ING Renault F1 Team completed a total of 161 laps with its two cars. Nelson Piquet Jr and Heikki Kovalainen finished 7th and 10th respectively, with best laps of 1:32.542 and 1:32.967.

Heikki Kovalainen: “We had a busy day and managed to run through our full programme. We will be working on the data tonight with the engineers in order to make more progress tomorrow.”

Nelson Piquet Jr: “I started my proper test programme today as we worked on set-up changes. We tested a number of different ideas, and we are making progress every day. Hopefully, we can carry on the same way tomorrow for my last day of running.”

Chief Test Engineer Christian Silk commented: “The track conditions were very changeable today because of the wind, but we adapted to it and adjusted the set-up of the car in order to complete our programmes. Our main focus today was on set-up, and once again we found plenty of useful directions. There is lots of data to analyse this evening so we can make more progress tomorrow.”

Heikki Kovalainen, R27-03, 73 laps, best lap: 1’32.967
Nelson Piquet Jr, R27-01, 88 laps, best lap: 1’32.542