Alonso to experiment with tyres in test

Ever since Nelson Piquet showed good pace to score second place in Germany after a period behind the safety car, the team have believed that a slow few laps when tyres first run has improved their consistency over longer distances.

That is why Alonso and Piquet have spent some time on Saturday morning practice in Hungary and Valencia lapping very slowly - sometimes 20 seconds off the pace - to prepare the tyres.

When asked by autosport.com if he felt the practice was a definite benefit Alonso said, however, he was unsure and felt a proper evaluation was needed.

"We don't know," he said. "In Hungary the results were better than normal and we were quite happy with the performance of the tyres. But everyone was happy with the performance of the tyres on Sunday because in Hungary the grip was going up and Sunday was okay for everybody.

"I think we need a test, maybe this week in Monza, to really compare the tyres because in the race weekends the conditions change so much from Friday to Sunday you never know if it is worth what we do or not."

Other teams are aware of what Renault are up to, but are not yet convinced enough to follow suit with the concept.

Honda Racing team principal Ross Brawn said in Valencia: "It's just putting them through a gentle duty cycle to make the tyre more resilient for the race. So I guess that's why they are doing it.

"We can see the benefit of it, but it's balancing everything else you want to achieve. Possibly it depends on your car or the tyres that are available."