Budapest, free practice 2: McLaren responds, Renault still competitive

Friday 1 August 2008, 17:50:00 | RF1 Paddock Pass

Friday . Hungary . Free practice

After a morning dominated by Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton set the best time of the afternoon in front of Nelson Piquet. Fernando Alonso was fourth.

 

 

After a morning dominated by Ferrari, it was time for McLaren to lead the way this afternoon as Lewis Hamilton went to the top of the times. But it was the Renault of Nelson Piquet that was second, ahead of the other McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen. The McLaren drivers were running with a new nose on their MP4/23s, similar to the horns on the BMWs and Hondas. This development was evaluated during the recent Jerez test. 

So after the 90-minute session, Nelson Piquet ended up just 0.194 seconds behind Hamilton and 0.012 seconds in front of Kovalainen. Renault confirmed this good form with Fernando Alonso in fourth, the Spaniard covering 35 laps. He set his best time on his second flying lap with soft tyres having made a small mistake on his first lap. The weekend therefore seems promising for the team.

The first Ferrari was Kimi Raikkonen in 5th, 0.455 seconds off Lewis Hamilton. The Finn was followed by his teammate, Felipe Massa. Behind the two Ferraris were the BMW pair of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica in 7th and 8th.

Significant moments in the session included the recurrence of  mechanical problems for Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso). The German only covered 4 laps this morning following a hydraulic problem, and in the afternoon he again pulled off the track - this time he completed 5 laps.

Comments

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1. Friday 1 August 2008 at 17:54:44 by Achilleasbig

you are the best nelson!
bravo alonso!

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2. Friday 1 August 2008 at 17:56:50 by dray

Well thats one way of reading the timesheets

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3. Friday 1 August 2008 at 17:58:34 by Lengskee

very promising results. hope we can keep up the momentum this weekend.

Good LUck Alonso, Nelson and RF1.

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4. Friday 1 August 2008 at 18:06:43 by reydelviento

I am confidence that we can get some good points this weekend. Tomorrow we will see. Alonso&Renault forever! Fernando don´t go to other Team. This is your home.

Go Nelson&Fernando. Allez Renault

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5. Friday 1 August 2008 at 18:57:14 by DIVAO

Bravo Piquet, let´s do it again tomorrow!

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6. Friday 1 August 2008 at 19:04:47 by jacua

Nice practice running from both Fernando and Nelson. I hope they can repeat such good performance tomorrow and finish sunday race strong in points. Go for it boys!

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7. Friday 1 August 2008 at 19:42:11 by RF1 Paddock Pass

Although it’s always nice to see your guys at the top of the timesheets, I guess we have to be realistic about the team’s chances. Listening to Fernando, he thinks that the team will be as competitive as we were in Hockenheim. That means reaching Q3, and aiming for points in the race. We don’t know what they other teams were doing with fuel and so, like any Friday, the times need to be read with a health warning.

However, the one thing Fernando did say was that the car works well on the softer end of the Bridgestone range. We’re running the same tyres we did in Monaco and Montreal, where the car was competitive, so that should help come tomorrow’s qualifying session.

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8. Friday 1 August 2008 at 20:33:55 by grip

What I find really interesting is what NP and FA had to say about engine improvements. Our rear tire wear and lack of grip are cause by the same thing. When running with an engine with less power we need to run less wing in the rear. This has atleast 2 results (loss of grip and excess tire wear.

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9. Friday 1 August 2008 at 20:37:37 by grip

Have we really been duped ? Have McLaren and Ferrari really found ways around the rules to make engine improvements ? Is there nothing we can do about it ?

It doesn't look like there is anything we can do as FIA has inspected the McLaren engine as has found it to pass regulations.

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10. Friday 1 August 2008 at 21:11:23 by NandoFan

This have always been part of F1, bending the rules as much as it allows you.
Too bad that RF1 lost some ground in engine development because of taking the 'freeze' too literally, but you can't blame other teams for outsmarting us for once. We've been on the upperhand before and now it's the other way around.

We just have to move on and try to catch up as much as possible with the engine so that we'll be matched again by the end of this season, and especially for the start of 2009. Nothings lost yet.
The difference with this year is that we would have been much closer and much earlier to BMW.

RBR is probably the only team who can compare the Renault engine from RBR with the Ferrari engine from STR.

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11. Friday 1 August 2008 at 21:17:41 by grip

Your right ... the RB car has seemed faster even though the TR car has the Ferraris engine ...but does it have the updates ?

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12. Friday 1 August 2008 at 21:25:10 by grip

I guess what I really find difficult in all of this was that the reason for the FREEZE in engines was to cut costs. So these advancements where made by bypassing the spirt of the regulations. Ideally the FIA should have put something into place that would measure HP during races an track it that way.

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13. Friday 1 August 2008 at 21:40:45 by galico

whole this story about the engine is unbeliveable...
as far as I understood,improvements in engine are done under the pretext of reliabillity...whole idea is that FIA allows upgrades if it is only for reliabillity issues,but performances must not be improved...
here is the 1st weakness of the rule...it is impossible to separate realiabillity from performance...one who modifies engine for reliabillity always gain in performance...

2nd,and biggest problem as I see it...whole idea make sense if some engine is prone to failures,and it cannot be that fails each race during the freeze,but I did not see any reliabillity problems related to engines of any team neither last nor this season...therefore other teams reliabillity fix ,better said engine upgrades,are totally non justified...

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14. Friday 1 August 2008 at 21:46:08 by adam20692

I just think the FIA loves its precious ferrari to much. Everything that has happened be it freezes have one tire banning the mass damper all these things have hurt us massively over the last couple of years i think if we had michellin tires our mass damper back and the freeze had never occured we would still be the best in formula 1 and would have probs won another 4 championships in the last two years

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15. Friday 1 August 2008 at 22:09:55 by adam20692

Id just like to congratulate romain on his pole posistion and wish him good luck for the race

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16. Friday 1 August 2008 at 22:38:10 by NandoFan

I think FIA is the only one to blame for having such holes in their 'engine freeze' regulations and for approving some changes certain teams made.

It would have been a good idea that, if teams want to change something to the engine after the freeze, that all changes would be published after they have been approved by voting.

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17. Friday 1 August 2008 at 23:31:40 by manuStudio

Great to see Grosjean on pole once again, lets hope he can get a win this weekend, and get closer to the top points in the title fight, he can do it.
Go Romain!!

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18. Saturday 2 August 2008 at 00:02:54 by adam20692

Nandofan i think your completely right they should have to remove those parts and revert to the engine that they had before they did the changes because it is just not fair

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19. Saturday 2 August 2008 at 00:09:18 by Diki

Alonso has appetite for Hungary podium place
http://www.f1way.com/news/2008/august/1/ ...


@NandoFan,adam20692-I agree with you guys.

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20. Saturday 2 August 2008 at 00:25:46 by adam20692

im glad im not the only one who thinks like this lol

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21. Saturday 2 August 2008 at 01:40:12 by amc

The british press are at it again...grr...

Anyhoo, positive start for our boys - in amongst a horribly heavy day of work I still found pockets of time to keep updated during practices!

I just hope our luck is now on an upturn and the good form materialises to last for the chequered flag.

I think in Hungary we need to have that old 2006 genius of strategic magic - with teams being so tight and hungary being notorious for no overtaking.

Looking forward to Quali...don't let those pesky Toyotas ahead for once!

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22. Saturday 2 August 2008 at 08:01:57 by enchinya

anyway, good luck to the Renault team. i just hope that you can get through the quali and the race without any accident

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