Fred Vasseur felt the Japanese Grand Prix weekend was a positive one for the Renault Sport F1 team despite neither Jolyon Palmer nor Kevin Magnussen finishing inside the points.
The team principal of the Enstone-based team felt the race pace and performance was good despite Palmer finishing twelfth and Magnussen fourteenth, with their speed similar to that seen by Williams team who saw both drivers finish inside the top ten.
“It was a good weekend for us in terms of performance, with our best Free Practice 3 to-date where we were in the top ten,” said Vasseur. “Qualifying, however, was a bit disappointing. Of course Jolyon got into Q2, but I think that we could have done better overall on Saturday afternoon.
“Our race pace was similar again to what we had seen in FP3; we fought with Williams in terms of pace until the end of the race and we were in front of McLaren and Toro Rosso. Today’s race confirmed that we have gone a step forward in pure performance, despite a tricky qualifying session on Saturday.
“Overall the weekend has been encouraging and both drivers did a solid job in the race with a strategy that worked well for the team.”
