Day 1 of three at Paul Ricard for the Renault F1 Team.

In the sunny climes of the south of France, the Renault F1 Team began a three day testing programme yesterday at Paul Ricard circuit, with Fernando Alonso and Heikki Kovalainen running in the R26 this week.

With the track in "Monaco" configuration, the Renault drivers naturally worked on preparations for the Monaco GP.

After a few set up changes this morning, Fernando Alonso focused on tyre testing during the afternoon to finalize the tyre selection for the next race.

Heikki Kovalainen today ran with the brand new R26-06 chassis, in which he initially conducted basic systems checks. He then began his development programme which was mainly composed of general tyre testing.

At the end of the day, Fernando Alonso had set the fastest laptime in 1'05.686, while his teammate completed a mammoth total of 174 laps on his way to the fourth-fastest laptime of the session in 1'05.889.

Christian Silk, Chief Test Engineer:  "Our first day was very positive: we were able to follow our programme without any problem and we identified some interesting solutions. We worked on the preparation for Monaco and especially on the tyre testing. We covered a lot of laps, we were quick and we made good progress on both cars. It was a good day of testing."

 DRIVER - TEAM - BEST - LAPS1 ALONSO Renault 1'05.686 1432 MASSA Ferrari 1'05.707 1283 TRULLI Toyota 1'05.752 1174 KOVALAINEN Renault 1'05.889 1745 RAIKKONEN McLaren 1'05.996 686 MONTOYA McLaren 1'06.177 1027 HEIDFELD BMW 1'06.466 1008 KUBICA BMW 1'06.586 1249 SPEED Toro Rosso 1'06.725 15110 R. SCHUMACHER Toyota 1'07.009 10411 KLIEN Red Bull 1'07.016 6512 DOORNBOS Red Bull 1'07.760 83