Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul warns against “overreacting” after another poor result at the Spanish Grand Prix.
For the third time this season, neither Daniel Ricciardo nor Nico Hulkenberg scored a point, with the Australian ruing a strategy call mid-race en route to a P12, P13 finish.
As a result, Renault remains eighth in the Constructors’ standings and Abiteboul admits the current situation is “not in line” with expectations.
“Barcelona is always a good race weekend to assess the competitiveness of the car and the team after the first couple of flyaway races that are not always representative,” he explained.
“The midfield is very close and any deviation leads to spectacular variations but the result today is clear, even without the Safety Car, a few points could have been possible.”
Even so: “We are not in line with the targets we have set ourselves,” the Frenchman noted.
“The test next week comes at a good moment to assess particular areas of the car in depth and look at important development items as we define our short-term and medium-term action plan to recover from a poor season start.”
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Certainly, Renault will be hoping for an upturn in results soon with only two seventh places to their name after five races.
But Abiteboul does believe the situation isn’t as bad as feared and will change if one area improves.
“It’s easy to qualify our start to the season as a bad start and that’s the case. However, sometimes in this sport, you tend to overreact,” he told Spanish outlet SoyMotor.
“If we put things in perspective, we see that we have done well these last three seasons, that we have made a progression.
“It was expected that this progression would stop at some point because it is easier to go from being ninth to fourth than going from fourth to third, we knew that.
“We have worked very hard during the winter to correct certain deficits in the section of the engine and the chassis.
“I am very happy with the competitiveness of the engine. In pure power, we are where we want, but there are certain risks with reliability and that is the next problem.
“Without the reliability problems, it would be easier to be fourth in the championship.”
