Nico Hulkenberg was positive solutions tested to boost his Renault's race pace after the Bahrain Grand Prix achieved the desired results in Russia.

While the German only repeated his ninth place finish from Sakhir, he did so by maintaining what was a slightly worse grid position than that he achieved two weeks prior.

And when evaluating the car's performance across the two Sunday's, the 29-year-old did agree Sochi felt better saying: "Yes, definitely, that's fair to say."

“I’m still not entirely happy," he added." I think there's still more work to do, for my taste there's still a little bit too much of an offset between the two [qualifying and race pace].

"But I think we definitely did a good step in the right direction this weekend in this case."

Hulkenberg also praised Renault's strategy call, as he stayed out for almost three-quarters of the race before switching to the super-soft compound.

"I'm actually really happy with what the team did there, and how we played the strategy," he said. "We lost track position straight away at the start on the first lap, which wasn't great.

"We were struggling at the start, losing positions, but that was the only thing we could do, change the strategy. When everybody was pitting out of our way, I kept on pushing on the ultra-soft.

"I have to say the car performed very well, it was switching on, almost, during that first stint with track improvement. I was able to go faster and faster and faster for many laps."