22/05/2014
NEWS STORY
Jean-Eric Vergne: "It was a satisfying Friday and I have a good feeling with the car. I like this track and even if I don't think I'll be P4 in Qualifying, I'm still happy with what we achieved today. This has been a proper way to build up confidence and it gives us an additional boost to fight for Q3 and points. We'll keep on working hard to get ready for the rest of the weekend. This is a track where the driver can make the difference so I'm determined to remain always 100% concentrated and give it my best."
Daniil Kvyat: "I enjoyed driving here in Monaco finally and it was a good day overall, in which I was able to learn the track quite well. Those were my instructions from the team, who told me to go out and do as many laps as possible. Of course, the rain that made the track wet for some of FP2 did not help so much, but at least I have tried the circuit in both dry and wet now. The results are obviously not very representative because of the tricky conditions this afternoon. We will now look at all the data between tonight and tomorrow to get the best out for Saturday's Qualifying and Sunday's race."
Phil Charles (Chief Race Engineer): "Today went well and we were able to work through our programme on both cars, even though we had to deal with some tricky conditions in the wet in FP2. In fact, even in FP1 there was not much grip because of the cool temperatures and the fact that part of the track has been resurfaced. Both drivers did a run on the Inters, before waiting for the track to dry, when JEV did a lap on the Prime tyre to check out the conditions. With Daniil we followed a slightly different programme, waiting to use the Option tyre, which was probably the right decision with him to give him a feel for the car on the softer tyre. In fact, his whole programme today was aimed at giving him as many laps as possible on his first visit here. Overall, we are quite happy with how the day went."
Ricardo Penteado (Renault Sport F1 track support leader): "Most of the running was done in FP1 on account of the weather. Both drivers tested some new software upgrades and were happy with the improvements. Obviously the second session was a lot shorter but we did all the tests we needed to consolidate the data and ensure that there was a genuine step forward."
Check out our Thursday gallery, here.