European GP: Day 1 Renault report
25 June, 2010
Jun.25 (YallaF1.com) Renault F1 team review the opening day of practice for the European Grand Prix in Valencia.
Robert Kubica, R30-03
“It was a fairly normal Friday for us and we managed to do quite a lot of laps to understand the car and the new developments that we have for this race. It was quite easy to evaluate the new parts and I was able to feel the difference with the car. Track conditions were pretty good, overall: it was quite dusty to begin with, but things improved a lot during the day.”
Free Practice 1: P4, 1.41.715, 20 laps
Free Practice 2: P6, 1:39.880, 28 laps
Vitaly Petrov, R30-02
“I had driven here before in GP2, but today was my first experience of Valencia in an F1 car. Obviously it feels very different and I had to adapt my driving style. We had a lot of new parts to try out so the car felt quite different and I spent the sessions getting used to that and understanding the car’s behaviour. Overall the car felt okay, but we’re still working on the set-up and will continue that tomorrow morning.”
Free Practice 1: P12, 1:42.962, 17 laps
Free Practice 2: P13, 1:40.618, 29 laps
Technical Debrief with Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer:
“Track conditions: For the first session the track was a little bit dirty and we saw the usual track evolution because nobody wanted to run early on. The track was a lot better in the afternoon: a bit warmer and much cleaner, so no real complaints about the conditions in the second session. We saw a lot of cars running off track today, but that’s probably because they were pushing to the limit and making the most of the generous run-off areas, rather than it being down to the track conditions. Set-up approach: The cars started the day aerodynamically very similar and both cars ran with the new blown floor. By the end of the day they were both running with a reasonably similar set-up, although Robert tried a different downforce level towards the end of the day, which he preferred. We will look at the data tonight to decide whether we will try it with Vitaly tomorrow.”




