15-Jan-08: Alonso Puts Renault on Top in Jerez
This is F1 Minute for the 15th January 2008.
The second day of testing at Jerez saw Fernando Alonso make a triumphant return to Renault, posting the fastest time. He drove 70 laps in last year’s R27, narrowly beating McLaren’s de la Rosa who completed over 110 laps. An interview with Alonso has also been published today where he managed to squeeze in some very subtle digs at Hamilton and Ron Dennis, now that he is confident and happy with his new team.
Toyota ran a 2008 car as well as a hybrid of old and new, but finished towards the bottom of the timesheets, sandwiching Fisichella in the Force India.
Three red flags caused problems for de la Rosa in the morning, and Nakajima and Bourdais in the afternoon. James Rossiter didn’t even manage to get his Super Aguri out on track, having to wait for parts to fix the problems they had yesterday.
Away from the track, David Coulthard has spoken out about the decision to drop the fuel burn laps from qualifying, saying it can only be a good thing. He felt the laps were an insult to both fans and drivers.
That’s all for today, please join me tomorrow for another F1 Minute.
Vittorio84 on Wed, 16th Jan 2008 10:08
Very good re-start for Fernando and Renault. Now let’s wait for the end of the week to try to understand the real situation of each team.
me on Wed, 16th Jan 2008 10:33
seeing him in those new helmet colours just seems right doesn’t it?
Christine on Wed, 16th Jan 2008 12:59
You can never really tell that much from testing where the cars are in comparison to each other, but you’ve gotta say that Alonso is proper fast to get a top time out of that Renault.