04/09/2020
NEWS STORY
Renault DP World F1 Team started its Italian Grand Prix weekend today with Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon in action at Monza.
Looking to extend the momentum from last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, Friday's practice was centred towards optimising the car balance with the low downforce demands at the high-speed Monza raceway.
Daniel ran early aero assessments on his car in FP1, focusing on future concepts, with the Australian also taking a new engine this weekend.
Esteban finished FP1 in twelfth and FP2 in eleventh, while Daniel was ninth in the morning and fifteenth in the afternoon, after his push lap on Soft tyres was deleted for track limits at the final corner.
Today was not about the timesheets and we're pleased with what we've learned on car balance and tyres ahead of the rest of the weekend.
Daniel Ricciardo: "It was a good day and I'm very happy with our work. I was already feeling comfortable in FP1, finishing ninth, but I knew there was a good bit more in it. We showed the pace in FP2, however, our lap time was removed for track limits. I'm not concerned about that as it's a small thing and today is about finding the limits. We know if we keep it on track tomorrow, we're holding onto that lap time, which should put us up the leaderboard. Our long runs were good as well and that was nice. We'll concentrate on tomorrow and look to make it count."
Esteban Ocon: "It's not the most important day for lap times and I'm pleased with how we've gone through our plan today. It was very complicated with traffic and slipstreaming, so we've learnt a little bit on that ahead of qualifying. We also learnt more on set-up between FP1 and FP2 and I felt we made a good step. On the whole, it was a fairly typical Friday. Our long runs were also consistent and that was pretty good. There's more to come tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it."
Ciaron Pilbeam, Chief Race Engineer: "We've had a good day with both cars running through their programmes without any problems and both drivers feeling relatively happy. Neither car did the lap time that they could have done on the Soft tyre, so the time sheets don't represent our low fuel pace. Daniel's Soft tyre lap was deleted for exceeding track limits at the last corner, but that lap was competitive otherwise and we have something to work with tonight. Finding a tow in qualifying will be a thing and today we already saw cars jostling for position on out laps, and I'm sure that will continue tomorrow. It's been a good day all round with both cars competitive on both low and high fuel."