The first day of on-track action at the Russian Grand Prix has come to an end and it has been two fairly regular sessions. In the first, many drivers lost braking points, so there were many tire lock-ups, as was the case with Lewis Hamilton at the end of the second DRS zone, where he lost the braking and was very few centimetres from colliding with the barrier. Many other riders spun, such as Alpha Tauri, Carlos Sainz and Nicholas Latifi, these both two ended up on the wall. The team that undoubtedly surprised us the most was Renault. Daniel Ricciardo moved into second place in free practice one just 0.507 seconds behind Valtteri Bottas, who finished in first place. In the afternoon session, Daniel again surprised by taking third position 1,058 seconds behind Bottas with a total of 27 laps covered through the Sochi circuit. Cyril Abiteboul commented that they had very good sessions and hope to be in good positions in qualifying as their car adapts very well to these types of circuits.

“Lots of… a bit of test going on in the background to try to understand a bit better what everyone is seeing from the outside, which is also to a certain degree puzzling us from the inside. We’ve conducted some aero tests to try to get on the bottom of these questions. The pace seems to be ok but the drivers are both complaining that a balance is difficult to find.” Cyril commented.

Renault’s team principal also commented his thoughts about his next season driver, Fernando Alonso, who was in their factory in Enstone recently. “We saw a Fernando that’s happy to be back not yet in action but back in the team environment in particular a team that he knows and where he obviously has good souvenirs. We just need to work very hard to make sure he has a car that he wants and also that he deserves.” When asked when are we going to see Fernando behind the wheel, Cyril commented: “We have a two-years old car programme that we can run pretty much anywhere and he will probably do a bit of that. So, you’ll see him in action. I can’t say here where and when exactly yet.”

Twice in one day 😁. @danielricciardo #RSspirit #RussianGP pic.twitter.com/DcPW3BLYJb

— Renault F1 Team (@RenaultF1Team) September 25, 2020

Cyril also shared his thoughts about the new name Renault will have until the next season, which will be Alpine F1 Team, and he was asked if this movement will affect his role as team principal, he answered: “The exact situation is that I have been asked by the CEO Luca de Meo to take as an extra mission the structuring of Alpine as a car company, as a brand but not just a brand inside of things but what’s the product strategy. What I can tell you is that I remain in the context of that mission until the end of this year fully committed in my role as team principal.”

Cyril also thinks that reverse grid is a great opportunity for mixing things up and to offer a show, this topic was also discussed in today’s press conference, these are his thoughts: “I still believe it’s an artefact and we should have the ambition of offering exciting races without that artefact. We’ve had, again, fantastic races this year and last year without reverse grid. So, I think that we are near enough 2022 not to have to use that artefact at this point in time.”

These were some thoughts Cryil decided to share in today’s press conference, his team is showing an excellent pace and we might see some surprises in tomorrow’s qualifying session.