Valuable data and good reliability for Renault after Barcelona test

The ING Renault F1 Team completed its final day of pre-season testing today at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona. The team enjoyed good weather throughout the day with warm and sunny conditions allowing the team to complete an uninterrupted programme.

The team was running two R28s with Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet remaining in the cars to complete their final laps before the opening race of the season in Melbourne.

Both drivers completed set-up programmes in the morning and then long runs in the afternoon, which provided another chance for the mechanics to run through pit stop drills. With good reliability and the collection of valuable data, the team has enjoyed another productive day. Both drivers completed over a 100 laps, with Nelson covering the most of any driver with 128.

Now the team's attention turns to Melbourne and the new season. Both drivers will travel to Australia at the end of next week to complete some fitness training and to acclimatise to the time difference. Meanwhile, back at the factories in Enstone and Viry Châtillon, the team will continue working hard on the development of the R28.

Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer: "We had a large programme to complete over the three days, and we were quite ambitious with what we were working on. For the most part we managed to complete everything we wanted and we have completed all our homework in time for Melbourne.

"Between now and the first race we need to tidy up the cars as much as possible; get all the new parts on the cars that we have looked at during testing to get them into race specification. Obviously we still have a lot of work to do from these three tests because we've had three tests back-to-back and not had much chance to analyse the data and understand what has happened. So that is what will happen back at the factories; there will be an element of thinking about what has happened over these tests and taking using that information for the first race."

Fernando Alonso, R28-03, 114 laps, 531 km, fastest lap: 1'21.454
Nelson Piquet, R28-01, 128 laps, 596 km, fastest lap: 1'21.443