Davide Valsecchi: “It was nice, so nice and such a good feeling to be in the car here in Malaysia. My lap times weren’t incredible as I had a bit of an issue on the last run, so I didn’t have the chance to test the car with the different tyre set up which would have given better times. It’s hot and a bit humid, which never makes it that easy, but the track was fine. The car felt really good but with the limited time I had it was important to take it easy and not push the car to the limit. Heikki gets back in this afternoon and I’m sure he and Jarno will do a good job for the team, so let’s hope for a good race this weekend.”
Jarno Trulli: “We managed to get through most of the program but the fact the traffic held up my quickest lap I think masks how we’re really looking in outright pace. It’s a bit tough as we have had a great build-up to the race here, and the support we have had from the fans and the media in Malaysia has been just great, so we’ll work hard to make sure we put on a good performance tomorrow and on Sunday.”
Heikki Kovalainen: “That was just one of those days. I went out in the second session and felt something go at the rear so came straight back in. It looks like a differential problem and despite the fact the guys worked really hard to try and get me back out the time beat us. However, we’ll work on it overnight, and on the data Davide and Jarno have collected today and get back on with it tomorrow.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 Support Leader: “I think we have done a good job today. We have learnt a lot about the engine behaviour here at Sepang and that puts us in a good position for qualifying and the race. We have completed a lot of work on the qualification maps and we have had some good feedback from the drivers on that part of the program. With all of this in mind I think we will be able to extract more performance from the engine in qualifying tomorrow so we’ll look to confirm that in FP3.”
Mike Gascoyne: “Today really was a day of two halves. This morning we had a pretty good session, with Davide having his first run in the car here at Sepang and he did a good job for the team, although his last run was cut a bit short. With Jarno we tried both the hard tyre and the development tyre and have good feedback on both. This afternoon we had what looks like a differential problem on Heikki’s car which meant his afternoon was cut short, so apologies to him for that. With Jarno we managed to complete most of the program, despite changing his power steering, but unfortunately when he was on the soft tyres traffic held him up which meant he wasn’t able to extract the maximum speed from the car. Despite this it is clear that the pace of the car is closer to the midfield than we were in Melbourne and now the onus is on us to make sure the reliability issues are solved and give the drivers a chance to show what the car can really do.”
Tony Fernandes: “The day started very well off track, with the announcement that Dell has upgraded their relationship with us to become an official Technical Partner. When a company of the stature of Dell wants to increase their partnership with us it is a clear sign that we are going in the right direction, so that was very positive. On track it was a day of mixed fortunes. It started well but ended up fairly mediocre, but there are still many positives that have come out of today. If Jarno had not had traffic issues we would have been much closer to being able to show our true pace than we were in Melbourne and even though we keep being dogged by reliability issues we are still very excited about the weekend ahead and what will happen in qualifying tomorrow.”
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