Bruno Senna insists he did not drive the Renault R31 at 100% during the first day of practice ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix and said he is hoping for more wet weather in qualifying.
Senna has been brought into the team to replace Nick Heidfeld this weekend and took to the track on Friday amid mixed weather conditions at Spa-Francorchamps. His morning session came to an end early when he crashed at turn nine and both outings were plagued by wet weather.
Senna did complete some dry laps, and in the second practice session was 17th fastest, but after spending most of his time driving in the wet he is hoping for more of the same in qualifying.
"I'm sure that if it's dry it's going to be a really big challenge in qualifying," he said. "Today I had a very tough dry running with some traffic and also some KERS issues. So I couldn't really focus on pushing the car hard and of course I had to be very careful not to but a wheel on the wet line and going off again. So all of that set me back massively and I don't think I was driving anywhere near 100% so if it is dry qualifying it's going to be tough. If it is dry qualifying it's going to be very tough."
He added: "If it's qualifying with the intermediates or with the wet tyres it should be straight forward. The conditions in Spa are never straight forward and tomorrow if it's like this it will be a bit of a lottery again and just being on the right tyres at the right time will be the way to go."
Senna said his team had not held him to blame for his spin in FP1 and revealed that Renault was much more supportive than HRT, who he drove for last year.
"When I made my mistake this morning, instead of beating me up they gave me great support," he said. "They told me to clear my head and do a good job in the afternoon and then to have it all behind me. For the first time I have a great support behind me and that's a great feeling."
And Senna said the biggest pressure he felt was from himself.
"The pressure would be the same if I was completely guaranteed to do the next three years," he said. "What I want to do is sit down in the car and deliver, I know that the pressure is there but my pressure is bigger than the pressure that has come from the outside. But that's how I work and I've been able to deal with the pressure before and I can deal with the pressure now. But I just want to sit in the car and drive a little bit."
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