http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news...821100027.shtml

"In the opening stages of the session (saturday morning), their R28s circulated notably slowly for quite a few laps, before recording a burst of full speed.
Auto Motor und Sport claims this deliberate start-stop preparation of the tyres gave the drivers consistency and durability for the race. "


So will they do similar at valancia?

Regards, Ruud

That might be onto something.

Renault were during some low speed tests in Hungaroring.

Today Ferrari were doing two slow laps-one fast lap thing.

Hi Ruud! Long time no post.

Wingwalker, what would be the point of conditioning tyres on Friday, when you have to return them to the FIA on Friday evening?

Erm...? Other than trying to figure out whether it makes sense, and will it will be worth of repeating on Saturday and Sunday which is basically what they do on Fridays?

I don't think it would be circuit specific: if it works at one, it would work everywhere. Perhaps they were conditioning tyres for long runs - but it may just have been traffic, or engine mapping work.

Maybe they wanted to see if it worked?

are you the admin on the f1fanatic.co.uk website?

The story behind that is simple.

Renault expected Piquet to struggle a lot during the final stages of the German GP, because he had been with the same tyres for half the race. But, surprisingly, he didn't had any problem to put very competitive lap times till the end. So they guessed it had to do with the Safety Car period, and subsequently did several slow laps, SC-speed like, at the Hungaroring, in order to find that regularity and consistence for the race.

Sounds like they scuffed / heat cycled the tires once. No big deal. Drive around a little slowly working the tire in, each lap going progressively faster until one all-out lap.

Bring it in to the pits, take the wheels off, and let em come down to ambient or just sit 24 hours so they're ready for the next day.

Been common practice for years. Stickers (a) aren't always fastest (b) can sometimes blister if you're running em too hard, heat cycling em once can help that.