Fisichella quickest at Jerez

Giancarlo Fisichella finished on top of the times on his first day of serious testing with the new Renault R27 at the Jerez circuit

Fisichella made his debut at the wheel of the car yesterday, but he only completed a shakedown and was hit by engine problems that cut his running short.

The session was more productive today, and the Italian covered a total of 114 trouble-free laps at the wheel of the R27. Fisichella was joined by teammate Heikki Kovalainen, who shook down the second R27 chassis, covering 43 laps.

"This is a brand new car, so to complete a full race distance on the first proper day of running, without any problems, is a very good achievement," said Fisichella. "It means that we are already in a strong position with reliability, although there is still a lot of work to do ahead of the first race.

"The track conditions were still not good today, but the situation is improving a little. It didn't matter so much today because we were focusing on reliability work, but tomorrow we will start to make some set-up changes. Overall, I still have a nice feeling with the car, and I can feel it has good potential that."

The Super Aguri team joined the Jerez test with Anthony Davidson at the wheel of the the Japanese squad's interim car, the Briton covering just one lap less than Fisichella and finishing less than a tenth behind.

Kazuki Nakajima continued carrying out testing duties for the Williams team, completing a massive 139 laps of the Spanish circuit at the wheel of the Toyota-powered car.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time     Laps
 1.  Fisichella    Renault              (B)  1:20.193  114
 2.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda    (B)  1:20.266  113
 3.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:20.393  139
 4.  Kovalainen    Renault              (B)  1:20.617   43

All Timing Unofficial