Fisichella not worried despite slow start

Giancarlo Fisichella remains confident about Renault's chances in the European Grand Prix despite a slow start to the weekend

The Roman was only 15th quickest in the afternoon session after having finished down in 19th in the morning.

Fisichella, however, said it had been a normal Friday, and he expects Renault to show their true potential in qualifying and the race.

"It was a normal Friday for us," said the Italian. "As usual, we did our race preparation today, working to find a good baseline set-up for Sunday, and to look at the tyres. There is still some work to do overnight to get the balance right, and we need to improve our competitiveness a little bit too.

"But we have seen many times this season, that we are a little far away on Friday - and more competitive in qualifying and the race. We did our job today, and completed our programme.

"Now we need to follow our plans and analyse the data in order to achieve a good level of competitiveness in qualifying tomorrow."

Heikki Kovalainen said he did not feel fully comfortable with his car yet after finishing right behind his teammate in the second session.

"The main thing for us today was to do our usual tyre comparison, which we managed and got a good answer from," he said. "The set-up programme was busy too, and while not all the changes were positive today, we have found the direction to go in for tomorrow.

"The car is not as stable as usual at the moment, so we need to improve that area to find more laptime. The job now is to get our heads down, understand where we can make the car better for tomorrow's practice session, and to have a trouble-free morning to prepare for qualifying."