Daniel Ricciardo said in an interview to be happy with the competitiveness that Renault showed in the last race, at Mugello.

Spa and Monza fitted very well for Renault, because of the many straights and the minimal downforce required. But before the Tuscan GP, the French team and Ricciardo himself didn't expect that the car would have proved to be so fast even on a track where higher downforce is required.

"We might be a little sad that we got so close to a podium," said the Australian when reviewing the race. "But when we step back and look at the performance, it was a track we didn't really expect to be particularly competitive on".

"It's a higher downforce one, it's one where we haven't been that particularly strong. Barcelona, these style circuits, aren't our strengths, and we showed good progress on this style".

"I think that's really encouraging. It gives us a bit of optimism coming towards some other high downforce circuits. It looks like we're getting the car in a better place. It's still so close in that pack, but I think on Sundays for sure our race pace is solid. So if we qualify towards the front, it puts us in a good place", explained Ricciardo.

Renault sporting director Alan Permane spoke as well about the Tuscan GP of last week.

"We're not quick enough to beat the Red Bull or the Mercedes in a straight fight," said Permane. "And that's what it was in those last 12 laps, it was a straight fight".

"But I've been saying to people here what we should focus on is the 5.2 seconds we put on Perez in those last 12 laps. That's the important thing, that's where our race was".

"It's a shame not to get a podium, it would have been lovely, but we're not racing Red Bull unfortunately yet, and we're not racing Mercedes. But we are racing Racing Point, we are racing McLaren, and we are racing Ferrari, and we've comprehensively beaten them, and that's the important thing", said eventually Permane.

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