Renault under its weeping ground plays the reliability card in Jerez

Renault was on the Jerez circuit today as part of its winter development program. Nelson Piquet was at the wheel of the R29 for his second day of testing.

The bad weather conditions, with incessant rain during the eight working hours, forced the team to adapt its technical program. Nelson Piquet completed a series of long runs totaling 66 laps without problems: The R29 performed very well on the wet track even though there was a gearbox failure.

Fernando Alonso will be behind the wheel of the R29 tomorrow for two days of work. The team hopes the weather conditions will improve to make the most of it.

Nelson Piquet, on track today, explains: « Today we had to change our program because of the rain. We did long runs and used rain tires. Despite the rain, the track conditions remained the same and we were able to learn quite a few things. »

Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer comments: « The bad weather forced us to change our program and we decided to complete runs allowing Nelson to drive on a wet track. It’s a shame that, so close to the start of the season, we couldn’t complete our program. But all the teams were in the same situation. The weather should now improve, so we hope to continue our testing program and make up some of the track time we lost. »

According to a statement from the Renault F1 Team