Day 1 of testing in Silverstone for the Renault F1 Team.
The French squad started its final planned test session of
the 2006 season today in Silverstone, running with Heikki
Kovalainen and giving Nelson Piquet Jr his debut drive with
the team.
Heikki started his programme this morning with set up changes
to the car and as the track conditions improved he was able
to work on tyre selection for the Japanese Grand Prix with
our partner Michelin. At the end of the session, Kovalainen
had set fastest time in 1'19.125 and covered 91 laps.
On the other side of the garage, Nelson Piquet Jr joined
the team for his first test as a Renault driver and focused
on discovering the R26 and the team's working procedures.
The Brazilian acclimatized himself well. He showed a good
level of performance and worked hard for his first day with
the team. He finally set the fourth-fastest laptime in 1'19.723
and completed 71 laps today.
Heikki Kovalainen: "We made good progress
today regarding the tyre selection for Suzuka. The track was
changing a lot so we will need to analyse the data to evaluate
the level performance of each type of tyre but it was a good
day of testing."
Nelson Piquet Jr: "It was a good first
day of testing. There are some similarities with the GP2 car
in terms of the clutch and electronics, but I still have a
lot to learn, so the main thing for today was to do as much
running as possible, and to take everything on-board. It's
important I think to learn a lot straight away and to meet
the people I am going to work with. It was a busy and interesting
day, and I felt comfortable in the car straight away which
is quite positive I think."
Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer: "We
started slowly this morning owing to the poor track conditions
and then we worked on tyre testing for Suzuka as it is our
priority for this session this week. Regarding Nelson, we
wanted him to acclimatize to the team and our way of working
and procedures. He did a nice first day of testing and acclimatized
himself well."
1 KOVALAINEN Renault 1'19.125 91 Laps
4 PIQUET Renault 1'19.723 71 Laps
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