Renault and Daniel Ricciardo now want to consolidate their place as ‘best of the rest’ after finishing P7 in China.
After a tricky opening two rounds, the Australian finally enjoyed a weekend that was in line with pre-season expectations as he sat atop the midfield in both qualifying and the race in Shanghai.
Now feeling more in tune with his new team, Ricciardo believes that result should become the norm if the Enstone outfit performs at its optimum.
“So I think there’s still certainly some areas we can improve, but generally speaking, if we put the weekend together we should be at the front of that group,” he said.
The result wasn’t quite as easy as it looked though, as a different strategy left the seven-time F1 race winner sweating in the closing laps.
“Considering Bahrain, we tried it [a one-stop race] and it didn’t work out for us, I’m happy that we made it work [in China],” he smiled.
“It wasn’t easy. [Sergio] Perez was actually really quick, he pushed me the whole race. I was trying to manage the gap for a moment but then he was coming so I just had to go.
“Towards the end, it was getting a bit tricky but I think he was also suffering so it didn’t make it too tense the in last few laps, which was good.”
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What may also appear worrying for Renault is the gap between them and the top three as Ricciardo finished a lap down, but team boss Cyril Abiteboul wasn’t so concerned.
“I think it was a more solid performance than it looks,” he told Motorsport.com. “It was extremely challenging to make the one-stop work, starting on the soft compound.
“We knew that anyone from P11 backwards and the top five would be starting on the medium, there was no point in trying to do some crazy stuff just trying to look for Gasly at this point in time.
“P7 was the target, and we achieved that.”