Nico Hulkenberg has admitted his Renault team are a long way from Red Bull Racing’s rate of development.
Red Bull picked up their first win of 2017 in Baku courtesy of Daniel Ricciardo putting them third in the constructors’ championship.
Meanwhile, Renault, who are in the second year of their Formula 1 comeback, has scored 18 points which far exceeds their 2016 total after just eight rounds.
Hulkenberg explained the differences between the two teams.
“Red Bull is one of the top teams – their rate of development has been quite impressive,” said Hulkenberg.
“From the start of the season to now they made big steps forward.
“We did too, but obviously not at the same magnitude. We’re not on that level yet.
“It’s little things, they’re not transforming the car or putting 20 points of downforce on.
“It is tough, it all needs to come together for us, we need to do a really good job, sometimes we need a bit of luck and help as well – people to drop out.”
The German is confident in the future of the team, already laying down targets for 2018.
“The team is moving in the right direction. There’s a lot of good stuff in the pipeline and coming in a later point in the season,” he said.
“All the signs are good and encouraging. It just keeps your head down and works hard.
“The ’18 development has already been on the road for some time, so it’s obviously quite advanced.
“There’s some good signs there. The gap to the front is big, so we need a lot of performance.
“It’s always relative, what you target, but we target that next year we obviously want to be well inside the top 10 all the time – not even top 10, probably top eight, permanently.
“So we have to make a big step to fulfil the expectations.”
