Heikki Kovalainen, 18th: “A pretty straightforward day for me. The car improved throughout both sessions and having got through the whole plan on both tyres we have enough data to work on overnight to find some more speed tomorrow.”
Jarno Trulli, 19th: “That was a good afternoon for me and thanks to the team for the job they did today. We worked on a couple of power steering options and I’m pretty pleased with what we found on the second option. We got through a decent number of laps and even though we didn’t have much time to work on setup options I think we’re moving in the right direction so it’ll be interesting to see how we’ve progressed tomorrow.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 Support Leader: “From the engine perspective that was quite a good day. Karun’s gearbox issue this morning limited the work we could do with him but we did complete a number of runs with Heikki using engine maps that we will be running in Silverstone which will help us understand how to maximise the cooling and fuel consumption of the engine there, on a track that isn’t as hot as Valencia. That data, along with everything else we have learnt today, is going to be very useful for this weekend and the next race, so I am pleased with the work we have completed today.”
Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “A reasonable first day in Valencia. As we expected the track was very dusty early on. Unfortunately this morning Karun had a gearbox issue with second gear which cut his run in FP1 short – that was a new gearbox so we need to work with Red Bull Technology to understand how that happened and put it right. In FP2 Jarno had a trouble free afternoon and Heikki worked through his full programme for the day, however today’s times do not reflect where we expect to be tomorrow so the focus for tonight is on extracting more performance from the car and pushing ahead tomorrow.”
Riad Asmat, Chief Executive Officer: “A solid day for us but obviously a shame for Karun that his morning was cut short. He will have more opportunities to drive in FP1s for us so he will have more chances on track, but apart from that we had a good day. This afternoon we completed decent mileage and while there’s obviously more pace to come, I’m pleased with the overall performance from the whole team today.”
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