Renault cautious despite strong start

Heikki Kovalainen finished second quickest in the afternoon, less than four tenths of a second behind pace-setter Fernando Alonso of McLaren.

Kovalainen's teammate Giancarlo Fisichella completed a solid start for Renault with the eighth fastest time of the day.

Symonds, however, is staying cautious, playing down the importance of today's times.

"The times on Friday are not always a reliable indication of teams' true pace, and they must always be treated with some caution as teams often run quite different programmes," said Symonds.

"On a circuit such as this, that is probably even more true.

"We focused on completing our programme today and started to get a handle on the tyres. As always, the track was very low in grip when we started running, and the constantly-improving track conditions further complicated our attempts to find a good handling balance.

"It was important to avoid chasing the track evolution with our set-up changes, and I think we made good progress on the basic performance of the car in spite of this."