Monza - Renault - Test Day 1With the Italian Grand Prix next up on the F1 calendar the team was champing at the bit to take to the track at 09:00 sharp this morning.
The Renault F1 Test team had just come back from the summer break and was ready to tackle a busy
test session. On the menu was preparation for the Italian Grand Prix as well as pursuing the team's development programme: the day's main objective.
Nelson Piquet went out in 2008 electronic set-up without driver aids. So he certainly had an interesting few laps at the start of practice!
The Brazilian, who arrived from Istanbul yesterday morning, soon found his marks and ticked off the runs to give the maximum amount of data to the team. The car seemed to handle pretty well, and the first results are positive as he covered 94 laps in what was the first real track test of the new systems.
Nelson concentrated on setting up the car in this configuration and worked on the brakes.
The team also used this sunny test session to begin its programme in view of next week's Grand Prix, especially as the weather does not look too promising for the next couple of days. At the end of practice Nelson set the 7th-fastest time in 1'25.360.
Tomorrow, it will be Heikki's turn to take over and concentrate fully on preparation for the Italian Grand Prix next week on the Monza layout. He will be testing in 2007 set-up. On Thursday,
Giancarlo Fisichella will assume test duties.
Source Renault
