Renault’s result at the Italian Grand Prix was “quite a statement”, according to Daniel Ricciardo, as it secured its best classification since 2008.
Renault has yet to realise its season-long ambition of closing the gap to the leading three teams but displayed encouraging pace at Monza.
Ricciardo classified in fourth, with Nico Hulkenberg fifth, as the team took home 22 points, leaving it fifth in the Drivers’ Championship.
Renault has previously struggled at the high-speed Monza circuit in the hybrid era and Ricciardo reckons its performance underlines the gains the marque has made.
“A bit like Canada, we executed the qualifying result into a strong race result,” said Ricciardo.
“I Felt that this one was a bit overdue because really since Canada we had a strong team result. We finally got maximum points if you know what I mean. That is really pleasing.
“I want to give an extra special shout out to Viry, to the engine boys, because this sort of result here as a Renault team and power unit is quite a statement.
“Every year we come here and it feels like that there is a lack of optimism, at least in the last few years it was never a strength of ours coming here. For them to turn it around this year to make the gains and to put on this result here is special. So this one is for them.
“Hopefully we can learn something from these low downforce circuits and take it into high downforce one like Singapore.”
Ricciardo also emphasised that Renault’s chassis engineers warranted praise for delivering a strong car in low-downforce conditions.
“Enstone have definitely for the last few weekends built a car on low downforce which felt immediately out of the box something that was, even though there is less grip with a small wing, it kind of felt easier to drive and more balanced,” he said.
“So for sure the package we have on these circuits is great. So coming into Singapore there is a lot of things we can learn with the high downforce, and take something from that.
“We definitely seem stronger on these high-speed flowing parts, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t get it right on the low speeds, so we will do some homework and hopefully this is an encouraging result for the boys in Enstone as well, and particularly as I said for Viry.”
