Simulation work for Renault
The ING Renault Formula One Team returned to Barcelona today to begin its final week of pre-season testing. The French outfit was operating two R28s with Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr. on driving duty.
Members of the race team are in Barcelona this week as the team conducts its final rehearsal before travelling to the opening Grand Prix in Melbourne, Australia in three weeks time. The team was therefore operating with a Grand Prix set-up and concentrated on running through race procedures.
Having endured wet conditions during the previous week, the team was again greeted by damp conditions this morning, and it was not until the middle of the morning that the team was able to switch to dry tyres. The team was still able to conduct race simulation work in the morning and ran through grid procedures as both drivers sampled the wet conditions early on.
For the afternoon, the conditions improved and the focus of the team shifted to pit-stop practice. In all close to 20 pit stops were carried out. The team will remain in Barcelona for the next couple of days to continue with preparations for the 2008 season.
Fernando Alonso: “We spent most of the day doing pit stop practice with the mechanics and everything went ok; no problems. It was important to do this to get everybody ready for the first race in Australia. The track was wet in the morning, just like last week, but it did not affect what we were working on and we are happy with the work we completed.”
Nelson Piquet: “Today was a chance for the team to try out its procedures and to prepare for the first race of the season. We did some wet-weather running in the morning, but it was all part of the simulation work we had planned and was mainly for the engineers to learn about strategy. We were only simulating procedures, so we were not really pushing that much today. Towards the end of the day we were able to do a little bit of work on the performance of the car and started looking at the set-up, which we will continue tomorrow.”
Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer: “Obviously the weather was not great again, but it did not affect our programmes. We did some race simulation work in the morning, and pit-stop work in the afternoon, which was all fine. Towards the end of the day we managed to get out for a final run to get a feel for the balance of the car and that went well. So a good first day’s testing, which should put us in a good position to get on with the main programme tomorrow.”
Fernando Alonso, R28-03, 79 laps, 368 km, fastest lap: 1’23.021
Nelson Piquet, R28-01, 86 laps, 400 km, fastest lap: 1’23.609
