Motorsport Week continues its mid-season review series with Renault, which has made further gains in its third year since returning to Formula 1 as a full works team.
Renault has almost stuck to the plan it implemented upon its acquisition of the dilapidated Lotus squad at the end of 2015, improving from ninth to sixth last year, and now holding fourth at the midway point of 2018. It has yet to take the podium finish it initially targeted way back when, though that owes much to the chasm it faces to the leading three squad – signalling that it still has substantial ground to make up. That it has acquired the services of Daniel Ricciardo (his signing undoubtedly its greatest achievement this year) acutely demonstrates that it is determined to close, and overhaul, such a deficit. Renault finished 2017 as the fourth-fastest package and it is therefore little surprise to see it replicate such a position this season, having already comfortably surpassed last year’s points tally. The car has been capable of points at each event though when tyre wear is marginal it appears to struggle more so than others. Reliability has been vastly improved, though the acid test will surely come when an attempt to substantially ramp up performance is undertaken.
Hulkenberg’s laid-back persona (that would see him ably cast in a high-brow scripted reality show) masks a hardworking individual capable of a stunning turn of speed on track. Hulkenberg has scored points in eight of the 12 Grands Prix to lead Renault’s charge and see off the threat posed by younger team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr. In Azerbaijan his own prang (his now customary once-a-year-error) frustratingly put him out of a race that turned into a lottery, while next time out in Spain he was a victim of Romain Grosjean’s hot-headedness. An exploding turbo in Austria and a Q2 mechanical gremlin in Hungary were at fault for his other failures to score. Formula 1’s current era far more suits Hulkenberg’s style than the previous tyre-saving phase, and Hulkenberg can be depended upon to deliver the goods for Renault – at least 90 per cent of the time. The impending Hulkenberg-Ricciardo battle is already one to savour, and we still have to wait another seven months.
Statistically, Sainz Jr. is having a worse season than 2017, all while equipped with a better car. Now thrust into a manufacturer team, and having had the benefit of a late-2017 stint with Renault, Sainz Jr. has largely been a step behind Hulkenberg through the first half of this year, as reflected in the qualifying head-to-head, lap time difference and points table. Albeit partly politically motivated, that Renault was eager to bring in Esteban Ocon, before ultimately recruiting Ricciardo, did not paint Sainz Jr. in a good light, nor has Red Bull’s decision to evaluate 2019 options further. That is not to say Sainz Jr. has had a lamentable season. He avoided trouble to take a fine fifth in Azerbaijan, scored strongly on home turf, and would have classified higher in France but for a faulty turbo that relegated him to eighth late on. However, for a driver so eager to prove his worth in a manufacturer team this time last year a little bit of gloss has been taken off his reputation.
