12/09/2008
NEWS STORY
The ING Renault F1 Team was back in action today as both Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet began their preparations for Sunday's Italian Grand Prix in Monza.
Conditions were damp and overcast as the morning session got underway, with the rain showers steadily becoming heavier throughout the morning and causing the team to run only limited mileage.
For the afternoon session, conditions improved considerably as the sun came out to give the team some valuable dry weather running. Both drivers were therefore able to begin tyre evaluation and continue with the set-up work that the team had started during the pre- Grand Prix test.
Despite the lack of track time, the team has made progress with its programme, although there is still work to be completed in the final practice session tomorrow morning in preparation for qualifying
Fernando Alonso: Today we concentrated on building on the work that we did here during the test. The weather affected our programme, but we have still been able to make some progress. I am still confident and we should be able to improve further tomorrow morning before qualifying.
Nelson Piquet: I did not do as much running as I would have ideally liked today. It's a shame but it's not too much of a problem because we made good progress in the test here three weeks ago and everybody had to cope with the same track conditions. I'm now focussed on making the most of the final free practice session tomorrow morning so that we can approach qualifying in the best shape possible.
Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering: Time loss today due to the extreme weather was not really too much of a problem as we had three days of testing here recently. As always, we had a few things to finish from the test and so we consequently ran with a really high fuel load during P2. Taking this into account, we feel we are in a pretty normal position for a Friday.
Denis Chevrier, Head of Engine Track Operations: Even though we tested here three weeks ago, we had a lot to get through today and we wanted to build on the interesting things that we had learnt during the test. Considering the conditions, we have not been able to do everything we needed to, but the practice in the wet this morning could prove to be valuable if the rain returns for the race."