Barcelona Testing, Day 1,
The ING Renault F1 Team begins testing in Barcelona
Fernando Alonso R28-01, 16 laps, 74 km, fastest lap: 1'32.820
Nelson Piquet R28-02, 8 laps, 37 km, fastest lap: 1'40.073
The ING Renault F1 Team returned to the Circuit de Catalunya
in Barcelona today to resume its preparations for the 2008
season. The team was again running two R28s and will remain
in Barcelona for the next couple of weeks to continue with
the development of the new car.
A grey and overcast sky greeted the team this morning and
remained throughout the day with numerous showers hitting
the circuit. As a result the team was forced to revise its
testing programme and was unable to continue with its set-up
programme as planned.
Both race drivers were on driving duty, but Fernando Alonso
and Nelson Piquet were restricted to limited running by the
poor conditions. Both men took the opportunity to complete
laps in the rain to gather data for wet running and to assess
the balance of the car on a damp track. The team also checked
all the systems on the car and now turns its thoughts to the
rest of the week.
Fernando Alonso: "It was cold and wet
today and so there was no point in doing a lot of running.
It was an opportunity to try the car in the wet, but it was
so slippery that we did not do many laps. We waited in the
afternoon for conditions to improve, but they did not so we
ended the day slightly early."
Nelson Piquet: "The weather was the
main problem today and limited what we could do in terms of
our programme. I only managed a handful of laps, but there
was not much we could learn, so we will have to hope that
the weather improves later in the week."
Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer: "It
was a day disrupted by the weather and so we did not learn
much at all really. When you have days like this you just
have to adapt the programme as best you can, and so we made
the most of the rain by completing some wet weather running
just to check the balance of the cars and to carry out basic
system checks."
DRIVER - TEAM - BEST LAPS
1 ROSBERG Williams 1'30.675 73
2 NAKAJIMA Williams 1'32.370 96
3 WEBBER Red Bull Racing 1'32.599 26
4 ALONSO ING Renault F1 Team 1'32.820 16
5 COULTHARD Red Bull Racing 1'32.924 23
6 TRULLI Toyota 1'33.283 57
7 PIQUET ING Renault F1 Team 1'40.073 8
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