The Renault F1 Team completed a busy day of practice at the Yas Marina circuit in preparation for this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. While the times may not look too promising for the French based squad, Fernando Alonso, who finished the day in 16^th place overall, explained that it was simply a day spent learning their way around the new circuit and further performance will come tomorrow...

"Today we experienced Yas Marina for the first time so we had to learn the circuit and work out the best way to set the car up. We tried a lot of different things and made some good progress by concentrating on getting good grip and traction in the low-speed corners,” he explained. “As we expected, the track was a bit dirty to begin with, but when more rubber was laid down I started to get a good feeling for the circuit and the car. We have a lot of information to look over tonight so that we can make some changes in the morning to find some more performance from the car before qualifying."

Meanwhile, teammate Romain Grosjean also liked the new track and despite finishing eighteenth overall in the second session, two places up on his position in session one, is looking forward to a more competitive Saturday...

"The circuit is very nice and it feels like there are two different parts. The first part is like a ‘normal' track and the second part, including the third sector, has a lot of 90-degree corners that are very challenging. I quite like sectors one and two, but not sector three as you cannot afford to make any mistakes there. These very different sectors are a challenge when it comes to setting up the car. Also, the temperature difference between the sessions played a relatively big role in today's programme as we ran on the track during the day and the night, which allowed us to see what it will be like for the race. Now I'm look forward to tomorrow and building on today's work."