15/04/2016
NEWS STORY
Renault Sport Formula One Team experienced a mixed day of running for the 2016 Formula 1 Pirelli Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit. Whilst Jolyon Palmer completed a full day's running, Kevin Magnussen wasn't able to take part in FP2 due to a suspension failure which occurred in FP1.
The team completed the bulk of Friday's programme with Jolyon today. Kevin's car suffered a suspension failure in FP1 which prevented him from taking part in FP2; his car will be ready for FP3 tomorrow. Both drivers ran two sets of Soft (yellow) compound in the morning in FP1. Jolyon ran a set of Medium (white) and a set of Super Soft (red) compound in FP2.
Kevin Magnussen: "I had a suspension failure on the car, and that led to the tyre going. It was fairly easy to control as I was going straight, not in a corner, so I just lifted. Otherwise I did some installation laps and some aero runs this morning which are always useful data-wise but I have plenty to do tomorrow morning in terms of what I can learn from the track and the car. It might rain as well, whereas the race is likely to be dry so this isn't shaping up to be the straight-forward weekend I was wishing for but we'll get there regardless."
Jolyon Palmer: "We got through the majority of our programme today and made some good progress in FP2 so that's encouraging. It was very low grip earlier on in the day and the track is rubbering in quite quickly so I think the times will keep dropping for everyone. For us, we have plenty of data to analysing from both short and long runs. We'll work on things tonight to see where we can improve for tomorrow.
Nick Chester, Technical Director: "It was a difficult day for us. Kevin didn't get a lot of running because of a rear suspension failure in FP1. We know the cause of the failure and will have modified components for tomorrow but of course it is disappointing for Kevin that he didn't get more track time. Jolyon wasn't happy with the car balance initially and felt the car had too much oversteer but we got better through the session as we worked on it, and his run on the Super Soft tyres was more encouraging. We have more work to do overnight to improve the balance and both cars will be ready for tomorrow."
Check out our Friday gallery, here.