Formula One news

Kovalainen upbeat with Renault progress

Renault today continued its development work at the famous Monza circuit, conducting further preparations for the forthcoming Italian Grand Prix. After completing the first day of this week's test running chassis R27-01 fitted with the 2008-specification standard ECU, the team's first full track test with this new component, the Renault Team reverted to a more traditional programme for day two of the test.

At the wheel of chassis R27-06 in standard 2007 configuration, Heikki Kovalainen focused on set-up work while using the low downforce aero package. The team focused on finding a driveable baseline balance, and on comparisons between the two types of Bridgestone Potenza tyre that will be available at this race, the soft and medium compounds from the 2007 range.

"We had a good day, and the car got better with every run," said Kovalainen. "We worked hard so that by the end of the day, the R27 was well-balanced. I think this will be a good baseline to work from on Friday at the Grand Prix, and at that time, we will focus on fine-tuning the set-up to extract the final tenths of a second for the race. The team did a good job today, and we made encouraging progress."

Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer added, "We were lucky with the conditions today, because we had been expecting rain. Heikki enjoyed a productive day of testing, made good progress with the programme and did some useful race preparation for next week. It was a positive day for us."

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