Briatore Positive Friday Testing Will Pay Off

Renault managing director Flavio Briatore has claimed his team chose to test on the Friday morning of each Grand Prix weekend as part of their aim to fight for the World Championship in 2004.

Anglo-French team Renault will join Minardi and Jordan as the three teams to opt out of season-long testing in favour of an extra two hours of track time on a Friday before each of this year's 16 Grands Prix.

Briatore said that the data gained from running for longer at the Grand Prix venues will be invaluable as the team prepares to take on dominant Italian champions Ferrari next season.

"For my team this is more an advantage than a disadvantage," said Briatore. "If I made a mistake I take full responsibility, but for now we are not fighting for the Championship so this is the best solution. We chose it because we looked deep into Friday and I am not sure the others did.

"The image of Friday testing was that it was for the poor teams and they dismissed it."

Briatore insisted that season-long testing is not as valuable as many teams believe and said that young driver Fernando Alonso, who moves up from the testing team this season, will benefit from extra weekend running.

"Every time you go testing you run and you run and you never come back with good results," said Briatore. "Friday is when you normally get good results and I think it will make two or three tenths of a second for the driver in qualifying.

"I have a very young driver and it will be an advantage for him on places like Australia, Malaysia, Monaco, and for the tyre, we choose the tyre on Friday at 11 o'clock, and for me that is the big advantage."