Bruno Senna hopes he earned more outings with Renault after Hungary practice run

The 27-year-old Brazilian, who raced for HRT last season, completed 25 laps in Nick Heidfeld's race car during the 90-minute session, ending up 15th fastest. He set a best lap 0.762 seconds off team-mate Vitaly Petrov's time, which he hopes will persuade Renault to consider giving him more track time.

"For now, it is a one-off opportunity and I guess if I did well enough then they might consider doing it again," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT if any further chances to drive the car had been discussed. "I hope that I have given them the motivation to explore a little bit more.

"There were no mistakes and no excursions from the track. There was no point in trying to be a hero. I would loved to have had a lap that was closer to Vitaly, but the chances of that were pretty low considering that you only have one set of tyres, and they don't last very long."

Senna admitted that adapting to the Pirelli tyres having run on Bridgestones during his maiden Formula 1 campaign last year was the biggest challenge.

Having to learn how to apply the DRS rear wing and KERS also took time and meant that the rubber was past its best when he was able to focus fully on driving.

"Adapting to the care itself is not the biggest difficulty," said Senna. "You have to think so much about getting the DRS and the KERS activation in the right places because you're not used to it. Then, in my case, the tyres were a bit worn out so you don't get the most from them.

"You need more miles to understand what you can do with the car, because its behaviour is largely dominated by tyre wear. So adapting to the tyres was the most difficult thing."

He added that he was happy with his performance in difficult circumstances and content with his pace compared to Petrov given that his mileage for Renault was previously confined to a single winter test in the R31 in pre-season trim and private running in a two-year-old Renault.

"It was really good fun to be in the car and it reminded me what I am here for," said Senna. "I did my best lap on the 21st flying lap, which was pretty good considering how the tyres were.

"We got to the point where I was pushing on every lap because I needed to explore the limits of the car and that's worn the tyres more than normally. Overall, it was a good job. I think that the team was pleased and I enjoyed myself."