2007 Japanese Grand Prix,
The ING Renault F1 Team completed a strong opening
day of practice today at Fuji Speedway.
Giancarlo Fisichella (R27-05, T-car)
Free Practice 1: 1:20.851, 23 laps
Free Practice 2: 1:19.926, 39 laps
HeikkiKovalainen (R27-03)
Free Practice 1: 1:20.718, 27 laps
Free Practice 2: 1:19.789, 40 laps
Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella both finished
in the top ten after three busy hours of practice, and completed
almost two full race distances in total as they learned the
circuit and the team fine-tuned the car set-up. As is usual
on Friday, the drivers compared the two types of Bridgestone
Potenza tyre available this weekend (the soft and medium compounds)
over both short and long runs, as well as tuning the car set-up
for race conditions. The R27 performed well and for much of
the day, and both drivers achieved a relatively neutral handling
balance. They will continue working overnight with their engineers
to consolidate their positive start to the weekend in tomorrow
morning's final practice session.
Heikki Kovalainen
I am pretty happy after today's sessions. This was our first
day at a new track, and I think we did a good job: we completed
a lot of laps, there were no problems and the mechanics worked
very well to get through the set-up changes in our programme.
We made progress with the car all through the day, and I think
that once we have gone through the data this evening, we will
see that there is still a little bit more performance still
to come. In terms of the track itself, I found it quite fun
to drive. As we expected, it is very smooth so there are no
big problems in terms of our comfort, but I think the key
section is definitely the last five turns. They are very slow,
and you are always tempted to over-drive this part of the
lap. However, the car is very light on downforce because the
speeds are low, so you have to be patient and really work
hard on the mechanical grip and on being very smooth with
the driving style. I think I got to grips with the circuit
quickly, and I am looking forward to another competitive day
tomorrow.
Giancarlo Fisichella
The balance of the car wasn't fantastic this morning, but
we made some good changes at lunchtime, and then carried on
moving forward during the afternoon session. We did a lot
of laps, explored some different directions with the set-up,
and we know where we can improve for tomorrow. The track itself
is quite nice to drive. We knew it was not going to be a match
for Suzuka, but there are still some challenging sections:
the final part where you can gain a lot of time, and even
the quicker corners through turns 3/4/5, where you need to
carry a lot of speed and get the perfect line to be quick.
Overall, I think this was a good first day, and now we have
to work hard to make more progress overnight.
Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer
This was a positive first day for the team. As soon as we
began running, we could see that our simulations had served
us well, as the car was immediately well-balanced –
and that meant we hit the ground running with our programme.
We steadily improved the set-ups on both cars, and completed
our normal tyre evaluation work. Both tyre types are working
well, and we don't anticipate they will pose any problems
in the race. Looking at our competitiveness, I think we are
in our normal position, at the head of the midfield group.
Our long run pace seemed encouraging, and we will work on
fine-tuning our single lap performance tomorrow morning.
Denis Chevrier, Head of Engine Track Operations
Our main priority today was to run a trouble-free programme
and to complete as many laps as possible. The track and weather
conditions were ideally suited to this, and we managed to
collect all the relevant information. In spite of the long
straight, this is not a particularly demanding circuit for
the V8, but it demands plenty of fine-tuning as we have never
run here before. We have the data we need to complete this
work, and there is now a busy evening ahead to ensure we are
fully prepared for qualifying tomorrow.
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