2009 Malaysian Grand Prix Friday

The ING Renault F1 Team began its preparations for Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix as Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet completed their programmes in today’s two free practice sessions in Sepang.

Fernando Alonso

Free practice 1: 12 laps, 1:37.395, P16

Run 1: 4 laps, hard (prime) tyres

Run 2: 4 laps, same hard tyres, change to rear suspension settings

Run 3: 3 laps, same hard tyres, change to aero settings

Free Practice 2: 20 laps, 1:36.640, P15

Run 1: 4 laps, new hard tyres, new gear ratios

Run 2: 6 laps, same hard tyres, change to ride height front and rear

Run 3: 4 laps, new soft (option) tyres

Run 4: 6 laps, new soft tyres, new front suspension settings

Fernando: “We tried not to do too many laps today as I wasn’t feeling one hundred percent. It’s a very demanding weekend in terms of the heat because we sweat so much, but it was important that we still got enough information. I hope what we have learnt today will be useful for tomorrow and allow us to work on improving the set-up. Hopefully I will recover more this evening and feel better tomorrow so that I can give my maximum in qualifying, which I think will be one of the most important parts of this weekend, so we need to be ready for that.”

Nelson Piquet

Free practice 1: 19 laps, 1:37.199, P14

Run 1: 7 laps, new hard tyres

Run 2: 8 laps, same hard tyres, change to front wing

Run 3: 3 laps, same hard tyres, change to rear suspension settings

Free Practice 2: 35 laps, 1:36.401, P10

Run 1, 12 laps, new hard tyres

Run 2, 12 laps, new soft tyres

Run 3, 5 laps, new soft tyres

Run 4: 6 laps, same soft tyres, change to suspension and front wing

Nelson: “We had a good first day with no major problems and so things look a bit better than they did in Melbourne. There is still a lot of work to do, but I’m happy we improved the car between the two sessions. It will be a tough race with these temperatures, but I look forward to it.”

Technical Debrief with Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering

Track conditions: “The track was quite slippery this morning, probably due to the heavy rain yesterday.”

Chassis balance: “The balance of the car is slightly better than we had in Australia, but we would still like to improve stability on the brakes.”

Tyre performance: “The hard tyre here in Sepang has never been used before so it was a learning process for all of us, however the tyres seemed satisfactory.”

Problems encountered: “Nelson went off this morning after a wheel failure and we are still investigating exactly what happened. Fernando’s performance and programme today has been compromised by the fact that he isn’t feeling well.”

Outlook for the rest of the weekend: “For the rest of the weekend we have to improve our performance from Australia and early indications are that we can.”