Nico Hülkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr. gave the Renault Sport Formula One Team a fourth two-car points finish of 2018 in the Canadian Grand Prix last weekend, with seventh and eighth ensuring they moved further clear of the McLaren F1 Team in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
The result was a positive one for team principal Cyril Abiteboul, who heralded the points after seeing both Hülkenberg and Sainz make gains through the pit stop cycle as they both jumped ahead of Sahara Force India F1 Team racer Esteban Ocon.
“Today was a highly positive result with Nico and Carlos achieving the best finishes possible with the current pace of the Renault R.S.18 relative to those ahead of us,” said Abiteboul. “We enjoyed good judgement from the pit wall which enabled a strategy to recover from a not so perfect start.
“The ten points achieved today are very healthy for the Constructors’ Championship.”
Renault introduced an upgrade to its power unit in Montreal and, coupled with the chassis updates the works team brought a long to the circuit, it was positive that both appeared to work as desired. Abiteboul hopes this is the first stage to moving the team forward and reducing the gap to the three dominant teams at the front of the field.
“The entire weekend illustrated the beneficial teamwork between Viry and Enstone,” said Abiteboul. “We delivered upgrades to the Power Unit and chassis and these worked extremely well.
“We did have difficult moments on Friday and Saturday but the team has done an amazing job of recovering from that, including changing a turbo one hour before qualifying with all hands on deck in a magnificent display of teamwork.
“We now aim to build on this result by looking at what can be done to reduce the performance deficit to the top three teams.”
