World Cup defeat mars Jenson's day

"The car is OK at the moment," said Button. "We didn't start off with a great set-up, and had to work hard to improve it. There's still a bit to go, especially for one flying lap, but overall, it's a good start to the weekend, except for England's defeat in the World Cup this morning!"

Jarno Trulli was one place ahead of his team-mate, and happy with his day's work.

"We concentrated on set-ups for Sunday and tyre choice, but we still have some work to do in order to balance the car properly," he said. "Overall, I'm happy with a productive opening day."

Like all the other teams it was Renault's first experience of the revised track and the team's engineering chief Pat Symonds said that the bumps at the first corner were worse than expected.

"As well as conducting our usual race preparation today, we obviously needed to evaluate the circuit changes," he said. "Although it is rather slow, the new part of the circuit seems OK overall, but the bumpy entrance to Turn One has posed us a few problems. With the circuit still quite green, tyre choice was difficult today, and we will probably wait until tomorrow to make our final choice."