Nelson Piquet was hard at work again on Thursday, the young Brazilian pounding the Jerez circuit on the new 2009 spec slick tyres. Once again track temperatures rose to a blistering 46°C as the Renault team began their scheduled program by working on grooved tyres to get a good baseline and understanding of the car.

From there they shifted their attention shifted to running with 2009 slick Bridgestone tyres as part of preparations for next season, making good use of the six sets of slicks available in order to give Nelson good mileage and acquire plenty of interesting data to consider with a view to the design of next year's car.

"It was very hot once again, but it has been like that all week so we are getting used to it,” Nelson said. “We spent most of the day looking ahead to next year by running with slick tyres, which was very interesting. They felt good, gave plenty of grip, and the car was working well. We also did some set-up work, evaluating the changes to try and improve the overall balance. So overall another good day's work."