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Q & A: Senna on Renault testing debut

After Nick Heidfeld's Renault test on Saturday, today it was reserve driver Bruno Senna's turn to try the R31 - but the Brazilian already knew that he was not in contention to become Robert Kubica's substitute

AUTOSPORT heard Senna's thoughts on his first test for his new employer and Renault's decision to seek an experienced stand-in.

Q. How did it go today?

Bruno Senna: The first few runs were more for me to get into the car and for me to get used to the tyres as well - we ran scrubbed tyres first this morning. Then we ran set-ups for the hard tyres to get a baseline for the car and a few aero runs as well to get some balanced figures.

On the second set of new hard tyres we got a few camber changes, tyre pressure changes, diff map, throttle map, quite a few electronic control changes in general that brought the car forward a bit.

It was good for me to do back-to-back changes as well to what the car was from before Nick drove and after Nick drove. A few things were quite different from the work that he did.

In the afternoon the plan was to run the soft and the super-soft tyres, but unfortunately we didn't get to do that properly, we only got the soft tyres in.

In general it's been a very productive day, I think the team liked the feedback I gave them. It took me a few laps to get into the KERS and rear wing systems to operate - it's actually quite a lot in the brain. After it becomes second nature it's more straight forward.

Q. Was this a trial for a drive with the team?

BS: It wasn't a trial. In unfortunate circumstances I was given a great opportunity to drive the car and do some work for the team. Considering that I've only been here for three weeks it's a great shot for getting some experience with the car and the team. The team knows what they need and it's up to them what they do.

It's not up to me. I only had one day in the car and it was good. But for preparation you need much more than that and they need a driver that's ready to do it.

Q. How would you say the test went?

BS: It was brilliant. It was the second test I had in a Formula 1 car, ever. Considering I raced for a year that's quite incredible.

Doing a full test day in a car makes you learn so much as a driver because of how much work you can do in the car. You can plan without having to worry too much about having only one and a half hours to do this or that. You can do different runs so I gathered a lot of experience, not only from driving the car but also from listening to the conversations between all the drivers and engineers.

I came into the car today and I was fully familiar with the communication procedures of the team. This is a big thing to learn when you get in the car. If you don't know what they're talking about you always can be confused, so it helps things.

Q. How did the car compare to the Hispania last year?

BS: It's a very good car. They have made a very competitive car. There's plenty of development work to be done. There's plenty of potential in the car still to be unlocked.

I think every year it's all about finding how to get the best out of the tyres and to get most downforce so the race is on and definitely they are in a good position.

Q. How did the Renault engine compare to the Cosworth you used last year?

BS: It's quite a different engine in terms of response, the Renault is a flatter engine in terms of power delivery but each engine has its own characteristics and they're both strong engines. In different cars it's very difficult to quantify what different engines can do.

Q. Will you have any more tests before the start of the season?

BS: I don't know, that's up to the team.

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