Brazilian Nelson Piquet maintained Renault’s unexpected run of high form on Saturday when he clocked the fastest time in final practice for Sunday’s French Grand Prix.
The 22-year-old son of three-times drivers’ world champion Nelson Piquet delivered the fastest time on a day of clear blue skies and warm sunshine at the Magny-Cours circuit in central France.
As the air temperature rose to 25 degrees Celsius and the track temperature to 43 degrees, Piquet showed - at last - that he can both handle the heat and the pressure of producing speed and performance in his rookie F1 season.
Until Saturday, he had been struggling to find his best form on a consistent basis, but finally he showed his potential to the Renault team in front of another small crowd of loyal French fans.
The Renault driver’s best lap of one minute 15.750 seconds was 0.009 faster than Australian Mark Webber in a Renault-powered Red Bull.
Germany’s Sebastian Vettel was third fastest in a Ferrari-engined Toro Rosso on a bright and hot morning in Magny-Cours.
Brazilian Felipe Massa, who was fastest on Friday and took pole position at the circuit last year, was ninth on the timesheets for Ferrari with world champion team mate Kimi Raikkonen fifth.
The Ferraris are expected to front the starting grid after Saturday’s qualifying, with McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton having a 10-place penalty for colliding with Raikkonen in Canada two weeks ago.
The first of the drivers who will vie for pole this afternoon was Kimi Raikkonen on 1m 16.003s for Ferrari, just ahead of Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, who very late in the session lapped in 1m 16.147s to push McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton down a place. The Briton had been fastest for a while on 1m 16.182s, while focusing on race running.
The top 10 was completed by Sebastien Bourdais for Toro Rosso on 1m 16.235s, Felipe Massa for Ferrari on 1m 16.256s and David Coulthard for Red Bull on 1m 16.282s.
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