Renault Managing Director Cyril Abiteboul says beating Toro Rosso is essential as he outlines the team’s goals for this season.
Whilst the manufacturer will be monitoring their progress in the chase to Mercedes, Renault will be aiming to fight with the top midfield teams on track and in the Constructors’ championship.
However, there is a massive motivator in the battle with the junior Red Bull team.
“This will be a transitioning year for Renault, but with a specific target,” Abiteboul told Auto-Hebdo.
“Our objective is to demonstrate our ability to progress and fight with good teams such as Williams and Force India – but in front of Toro Rosso, which will be running the same power unit as us – for a fifth or sixth place in the championship.”
It will be a tough ask for Renault. The manufacturer suffered a difficult return to F1 as a full works team, and Toro Rosso outscored the French team at most events scoring 63 points and far outshining Renault’s eight, but Abiteboul believes the team has made progress.
Of course, the engine manufacturer’s main focus is catching up with Mercedes, who have dominated the new era of V6 engines. Though Abiteboul doesn’t expect to be challenging the current world champions, he believes Renault can cut their deficit to Mercedes in half by the end of the season.
“In 2016, we cut in half the performance gap with Mercedes, which has gone from one second to half a second,” he said. “For 2017, we want to cut that in half again in order to finish the season approximately 0.25s behind our main rival.”
