28/01/2005
NEWS STORY
Franck Montagny and Giancarlo Fisichella dominated the final day of testing at Valencia.
This was the first opportunity to get an idea of how the 2005 cars will compare because only Montagny was driving a 2004 car.
The Frenchman completed 71 laps, posting a best time over a second slower than David Coulthard's stunner on Thursday. Fisichella, at the wheel of the R25, lost track time following a technical failure, but still finished just 0.384s behind his teammate.
It was the Italian's first run in the new car so he concentrated on basic set-ups and familiarising himself with it. Like Alonso, he has very favourable first impressions, and was pleased with the responses to set-up changes. His French teammate completed a tyre testing programme.
At the conclusion of the test a Renault spokesperson told Pitpass that; "basically it all went very well".
It was a day of perfect symmetry, for the two Renaults headed the BARs and Toyotas.
The Brackley outfit had an 'interesting' day, with Sato's schedule compromised by a number of red flag periods, a couple of them brought about by his teammate, Anthony Davidson. In addition to the seemingly obligatory engine failure - the fourth in a week - the Englishman also had a transmission problem.
It's understood that Honda has traced the cause of the problem - which is blamed for all four failures - and that the fault will be resolved this week.
Jenson Button, who was due to complete his second day of running, was sidelined by neck pains caused by his HANS device.
Jarno Trulli was 0.676s off the pace, while Olivier Panis, suffering a heavy cold, was 1.436s off the pace. The Italian had to switch to the Frenchman's car in the afternoon following a technical problem.