Daniel Ricciardo does feel Renault has the speed to score a top-five finish and is also ahead of Ferrari in the current pecking order.
Over the first three races, the French manufacturer has sort of been on the fringes, making more headlines for their complaints about Racing Point’s ‘Pink Mercedes’ than their own results on track.
Indeed, so far, Renault’s best finish in eighth, which they’ve managed in all three races, but the Australian is adamant the potential is there to join McLaren, Racing Point in the fight behind Mercedes and Red Bull.
“I feel we are not far from one of those top-five, top-six finishes,” he was quoted by Motorsport Week.
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“I feel we have a bit more speed than Ferrari at the moment. At least it seems so – the race pace isn’t too bad. So it’s coming.
“It’s good to have got the points but I know there are some bigger ones around the corner.
“It looked like we had a bit more pace than McLaren in Hungary. I’m not sure where their race went but we were pretty close to the Racing Point, so not too shabby.”
Renault had been hoping to steal an early march on their rivals by bringing three rounds of upgrades to the first race in Austria, which had been planned for earlier in the year.
But having not done that yet, the Enstone-based outfit hopes further improvement for the high-speed rollercoaster that is Silverstone can make the difference.
“Updates are always pretty nice and handy and Silverstone is one of those tracks…there’s some low-speed stuff but it’s pretty flowing with medium and high-speed corners,” Ricciardo explained.
“[That’s] really where the car is loaded and where you see the front end-plate, those types of corners where it drags and everyone is trying to work on this area of the car to keep some downforce in it and that high-speed roll.
“Silverstone will test that and see if these updates can help.”
