Nico Hülkenberg felt it was a ‘pretty routine’ practice day at the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday, but there is some potential still to be unlocked in the R.S.18 this weekend, which he hopes will give them a strong result on Sunday.
The German finished tenth in Friday’s opening practice session before improving to seventh in the evening session, which will be particularly pleasing as both Qualifying and the race are set to take place in similar conditions on Saturday and Sunday.
“A pretty routine Friday, where we made progress through the day, and hopefully learnt sufficient for us to find further pace overnight to take into tomorrow,” said Hülkenberg.
“I’m reasonably happy with the car but there’s definitely potential for improvement and that’s what we’re targeting.”
Nick Chester, the Renault Sport Formula One Team’s technical director for the chassis, said it was a positive day in Bahrain for both Hülkenberg and team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr., and it is now time to identify what needs to be improved for the rest of the weekend.
“We ran pretty well to programme today and completed positive aero comparisons with our updates including a new Halo fairing in FP1,” said Chester.
“In FP2 we completed the usual tyre comparisons. We will now analyse our data to identify where we can improve for FP3 and qualifying.”
