Renault buoyed by test progress
Saturday, 14 February 2009 13:21
The Renault team believes it turned a corner with its 2009 car at the end of this week's Jerez test.
The former champion squad's new R29 has been near the foot of the times at most of the tests since it launched last month, but on Friday Fernando Alonso was second fastest of the 2009 cars, just 0.2s behind Lewis Hamilton's McLaren.
"After doing so many laps with the car on Thursday, we concentrated more on set-up work today to get a better understanding of the car and make it easier to drive," said Alonso.
"Overall, we have to be very happy as we managed to do lots of laps and the car responded well to the set-up changes we made, so I think we've found some good solutions.
Every day the drivability of the car is improving and although we still have a lot of work to do before the start of the season, we are definitely moving in the right direction."
Renault had been struggling for traction with the R29 before Friday's breakthrough showing.
The team has cancelled a private test scheduled for Barcelona next week, although it has played down suggestions that this was due to a lack of performance and the need to urgently develop new parts before the next Jerez group test at the beginning of March.
Chief test engineer Christian Silk is confident Renault is now on an upward curve after its difficult start to 2009.
"We're continuing to make changes and the car is responding very well to those and so we've already found a good balance," he said.
"Overall it's a positive end to the test for us."
