Formula One news

Alonso and Piquet looking forward to Sakhir

Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet are itching to get going this weekend, as F1 returns to Bahrain. The Renault team has had a difficult start to the 2009 campaign and currently lies sixth in the constructors' championship with four points, courtesy of Alonso in Australia.

"To come away from China with no points was a disappointing end to a really positive weekend where we showed a lot of potential," the former double World Champion said, having qualified second on the grid in Shanghai. "The new parts we added to the car (chiefly a new rear diffuser) gave us a big step forward and the team did a great job to get them to China and fit them on the car in time for qualifying; to qualify on the front row showed the progress we've made and it was a boost for the whole team."

Renault debuted its new diffuser on Alonso's car in China

Fernando's last race victory in Bahrain came in 2006, beating Michael Schumacher in a titanic duel after emerging from the pit lane side-by-side with the Ferrari. "Yes, it's a challenging circuit and I have some good memories of my wins there in 2005 and 2006 with Renault," Alonso continued. "Because of the circuit's location, it can get quite dusty and the conditions change from lap to lap so you need to be careful, but there are still some good overtaking opportunities, especially into Turns 1 and 4."

"I was hoping for a dry weekend in China, but then it started raining before the start so I knew it would be a difficult race," Piquet explained. "The visibility was really poor and the car was aquaplaning on the standing water, which caught me out a couple of times and damaged the car. If I'm honest, Sakhir is not one of my favourite circuits although there are exciting parts of the lap such as Turns 5 and 6. It's also one of the hotter races of the year so it's quite demanding physically, although it's dry heat rather than the humidity you get in Malaysia."

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