Barcelona Testing, Day 1,
The ING Renault F1 Team back testing at Barcelona
again.
Nelson Piquet Jr., R27-05, 125 laps, 574 kilometres, fastest
lap: 1'22.763
After a couple of weeks' break since the Bahrain Grand Prix,
the ING Renault F1 Team was back on track today on the Catalunya
circuit near Barcelona for another 3-day test session, which
is being held in the week preceding the Spanish Grand Prix
and as such is particularly important.
Nelson Piquet Jr. was at the wheel of the R27-05 for the
first day's testing. The young Brazilian had a very busy time
as he covered 125 laps, nearly 574 kms, and concentrated mainly
on aerodynamic tests in the context of the team's development
programme. The aim was to validate previously recorded data,
and to prepare for the next two days' running as well as next
week's race. Nelson was able to complete his programme without
problems.
Nelson Piquet Jr: "I think that we've
recorded interesting data for the engineers who will now get
down to analysing them. We did a lot of running today, from
09:00 to 18:00 non-stop. I covered a large number of laps
and it's almost 2 months since I last drove the car, so it
wasn't the most restful of days for me! But it's good to be
back behind the wheel again."
Christian Silk, chief test engineer: "We've
begun our week's testing with a good day's work. We were doing
aero testing that's part of our normal development programme,
and took full advantage of today without running into the
slightest reliability problem. It was good for Nelson to get
back into the car and he did exactly what we expected of him.
We'll continue our programme tomorrow on the basis of today's
testing."
Heikki Kovalainen will pursue Renault's test programme tomorrow.
DRIVER - TEAM - BEST LAPS
1 SCHUMACHER Toyota 1'20.479 92
2 RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1'21.195 97
3 SATO Super Aguri 1'21.858 98
4 DE LA ROSA McLaren 1'21.906 100
5 HEIDFELD BMW 1'22.114 78
6 BARRICHELLO Honda 1'22.655 131
7 PIQUET Renault 1'22.763 125
8 LIUZZI Toro Rosso 1'22.771 56
9 COULTHARD Red Bull Racing 1'22.973 47
10 FAUZY Spyker 1'23.343 43
11 VAN DER GARDE Spyker 1'23.466 37
12 NAKAJIMA Williams 1'24.248 31
13 ROSBERG Williams 1'24.321 11
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