Program completed for Renault… with Piquet!

The Renault F1 Team wrapped up its last day of testing in Valencia today; a day that concludes the team’s first work session with its new R28 single-seater.

Nelson Piquet Jr, who had been following his teammate’s tests since the beginning of the week, was able to in turn discover the R28. The young Brazilian first took advantage of this initial morning to familiarize himself with the new car and validate his driving position.

The objective today was once again to accumulate as many kilometers as possible on the new package, and the more than mild weather conditions this January allowed the team to continue its development program without difficulty. The ING Renault F1 Team took this opportunity to improve the car’s balance and continue progressing on its development program, initiated by Fernando Alonso earlier this week.

The Renault team thus concludes a particularly productive four-day session with an encouraging level of reliability at this stage of its development program and can be satisfied with having met the objectives it set for itself this week. Nelson, for his part, was happy to make his first laps today at the wheel of the R28 and gave an encouraging assessment of this first session.

At the end of the day, the Brazilian was able to complete 89 laps with a time of 1’12.973.

ING Renault F1 Team is now preparing to officially present its new R28 to the press next Wednesday before finally hitting the track again, this time with two R28 chassis, for three days of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona from February 1st to 3rd.

Nelson Piquet Jr – 11th: « It was a good day of work and it was important for me to get back on track. »

« I have never raced in F1 yet, so it’s always interesting to have as much time as possible in the car. A new car always requires a lot of work in terms of setup, and that’s what we’ve been working on today, trying various solutions to improve the overall balance. I believe that for now, our situation is promising, and I’m looking forward to continuing our development program next week in Barcelona. »

Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer: « It was Nelson’s first day in the R28 and everything went as planned. We started our program with tests to allow Nelsinho to get accustomed to the new car and then he switched to setup tests that we had started with Fernando. The track conditions were good again today, so we aimed to take advantage of that with rather long runs.

According to a press release from the Renault F1 Team