31/07/2020
NEWS STORY
Renault DP World F1 Team started its preparations for this weekend's Pirelli British Grand Prix today at a scorching hot Silverstone.
Daniel Ricciardo was ninth quickest with team-mate Esteban Ocon just a tenth down on the Australian in the afternoon session.
For FP1, Esteban ran the new spec bargeboards and floor on his Renault R.S.20 with Daniel using the upgraded parts in FP2 to run a comparison between the items. Esteban ended FP1 in seventh with Daniel 0.016secs behind in eighth.
The afternoon session saw both drivers predominantly run on Hard tyres in preparation for Sunday's race with a quick outing on Softs for pre-qualifying assessments.
Temperatures peaked at 35C on the Northamptonshire-Buckinghamshire border with strong gusts also playing a part on a busy Friday's practice. It is expected the temperature will cool significantly for the rest of the weekend, meaning today's running is not quite representative for qualifying and race conditions. There is, however, a 40% chance of rain on Saturday afternoon.
We're pleased with today's progress and the upgraded parts worked as expected. Conditions were extremely hot for Silverstone and not what we expect for tomorrow or Sunday, which should be a lot cooler.
Daniel Ricciardo: "It certainly feels a bit different driving here without fans as it's one of the places you feel it most. It's always a fun track to drive, so I enjoyed taking on some of the high-speed stuff this place offers. In terms of our running, we showed some promising signs but, on my side, we lacked a bit of consistency in the car. On some runs, I felt happier than others, so we have some work to do there. As always, it's pretty close between a group of cars. The temperature is dropping tomorrow, so it should change quite a bit."
Esteban Ocon: "It was a pretty decent day, I would say. It was good to test the new updates and get a feel for the car on a very quick track, which contains a lot of high-speed corners. I found it interesting to test the car in tricky conditions with the heat and quite a strong wind. Overall, it worked quite well today but we have a bit of pace to come for qualifying tomorrow. We'll look through the data and be ready for tomorrow when it matters."
Ciaron Pilbeam, Chief Race Engineer: "It was quite a warm and windy day here, which affected the car and tyre behaviour throughout the day for everybody. The morning session was fairly straightforward for us and we worked through a series of set-up options. Esteban's afternoon session ran smoothly, but Daniel's was not quite so smooth. He had a cut in one of his tyres, which limited what he could do in the second half of the session. We have good data on both short and long runs, which we'll look through tonight and prepare for the rest of the weekend. The upgrades that we tested today seem to be working well. It looks like it's going to be much cooler for the rest of the weekend, and possibly wet on Saturday."
Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone, here.