After finishing season-2018 on the 4^th place in Constructor Standings, being the first team of the midfield, now Renault definitely came into the season with desire to hold its position and even to close the gap from top teams. However, the start of this season could hardly be called successful for French car manufacturer. After 5 races Renault is on 8^th place with 12 points, and 10 points behind current midfield leader McLaren.

Despite the difficult start of the season Renault principal Cyril Abiteboul says the team is still full of ambitions and their main target for this season isn’t changing.

"We want to come back to the performance level we need to have at this point of our journey – to stick to our target which frankly is absolutely not changing. We are not renegotiating our target at this point of time," – Abiteboul told Motorsport.com.

Obviously, Renault has big issues with reliability of its car. Transition to the second version of the engine had to solve this problem. At the same time, Cyril agreed that while his team remains in the midfield group, where every team is very close, and the results depend on many factors.

"I’m pretty sure everyone could be saying the same. I’m sure if Haas does everything correctly, if Toro Rosso does everything correctly, if McLaren does everything correctly, they could be doing the same," – he said.

"It is true that any small deviation can make the change more spectacular than it is in reality, but the target was to be clear ahead of the midfield, and so far we have not delivered. So the short term priority is to get back in line with that competitiveness level which, in my opinion, is completely accessible if we do things right and we bring what we are supposed to bring in the next couple of races to the car."

As for the eighth position in the standings, according to Abiteboul, it isn’t significant, as there are only 10 points to the fourth position of McLaren.

"Frankly that is the only good news," – Abiteboul said about no team currently pulling clear in the midfield. "I think it is extremely open and I think until probably two-thirds of the season it will remain the situation."

"So that will give us the opportunity to regroup, do what we need to do, address the early season issues and P4 in the championship is completely achievable."

"But again that was not the only target this year. The target of this year was to reduce the gap to the top teams, but right now it is not happening and we need to take steps to make sure it happens."

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