14/10/2005
NEWS STORY
The Mild Seven Renault F1 Team made a solid start to the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International circuit today, completing two busy practice sessions with drivers Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella. Weather conditions proved unexpectedly cool and windy, making life difficult for the team as they searched for a consistent balance on the car, but both drivers completed their planned performance and endurance runs on the two types of tyre without any problems. The new RS25E engine ran without incident, and the team will now work on its tyre choice overnight before beginning set-up changes in tomorrow morning's practice sessions.
Fernando Alonso: The car was quite hard to drive today, but I think that is normal on the first day at this circuit, when track conditions are so dirty. It was also very windy out there, which had an impact on the car balance in the high speed corners. But we managed to test all the tyres, did some good laps and completed our long runs: the two types of tyre are quite close in performance, so we will have to work on the choice tonight. I think the circuit conditions will improve tomorrow, and as the grip levels increase then the car balance will improve to, but we have two more practice sessions to get things right in terms of performance.
Giancarlo Fisichella: I was struggling a little bit today. The track conditions were not perfect, and I couldn't get a good balance on the car: it was oversteering at some points, then understeering when I put the power on. The tyre decision will not be easy, because they are both close, but we have a lot of data to study tonight before making our decision. Although the balance was not right, I still think the performance looks OK, and I hope we can be competitive for the race.
Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering: Today's weather conditions were not what we expected. It was cool and humid, and the wind was also strong during the day. That left us slightly puzzled, and the balance of the two cars is far from perfect – both drivers found the R25 a bit unpredictable, which may have had something to do with the windy conditions. In spite of this, we managed to get through our normal programme, concentrating on the tyre choice. Indeed, we found them closer than we expected and we will work hard this evening to select the right tyre for the race.
Denis Chevrier, Head of Engine Operations: Our free practice programme has become a well-oiled routine this year, and once again, we were pleased to experience a trouble-free, normal Friday in today's practice sessions. We ran a typical programme, checking the new engine specification was working correctly and tuning the engine mapping. So far, the E spec RS25 is running as expected, without any nasty surprises.