GP REPORT

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Heikki was fastest again at Paul Ricard

Kovalainen completed 92 laps in total in the R26, his best a 1 minute 05.287 seconds, two tenths up on Pedro de la Rosa, who was next up for McLaren. The Finn spent the morning, which began in damp conditions after heavy overnight rain, evaluating the chassis and engine set-ups in the semi-wet conditions. In the afternoon he focused on set-up development and continued with tyre evaluation for Michelin.

"We only ran with one car this week, but that allowed us to really focus our programme and get a lot done," said Renault's chief test engineer, Christian Silk. "Heikki has had a very successful test and obtained a lot of good results on set-up directions and tyres. The reliability has been generally excellent, and we have unearthed a few small problems that we can now help the race team avoid. In a week when other teams have been hampered by poor conditions elsewhere in Europe, we have been lucky with the weather, and made the most of our three days' work."

McLaren duo, de la Rosa and Gary Paffett meanwhile were second and third on the timesheets. Neither began running until after lunch though, by which time the track had began to dry out. The focus for the former was chassis developments for the MP4-21, with the latter working alongside on the same programme at the wheel of the interim MP4-20.

"We have had a really positive test this week at Paul Ricard, with reliable running on all four days," summed up de la Rosa. "This has enabled us to put significant mileage onto chassis 4 of MP4-21 and the Mercedes-Benz V8 engine, as we worked through the various development programmes with the car. There have been a few problems with the weather on Tuesday and this morning, but it did not affect my programme too badly, as I was able to continue putting in the miles. My total kilometres for the week is 2,207, and I was able to complete two Grand's Prix distances on each of the first three days."

Paffett was also happy, even if he did miss the first day on Tuesday, as the team decided it wasn't worthwhile running in the wet.

"It was good to get back to testing this week at Ricard, obviously it was a shame that I was not able to get on track on Tuesday, but my programme with Michelin was focused on dry running, which was not possible due to the wet weather conditions," explained the Brit. "We had a couple of positive days on Wednesday and Thursday and completed the tyre selection process for Imola. Today my focus was chassis development and we had some strong running in the afternoon when the track dried out."