Abiteboul: 'That seemed to confirm our theory'

The coming season will be very important for Renault. The French team wants to go back to the top, and wants to do so next year with Fernando Alonso, who returns after several years of absence in the sport. There will also be a name change, going from Renault to Alpine.

Renault's performance has steadily improved over the course of the season. From Spa onwards, the team's performance has been stable. The biggest competitors in the battle for midfield are McLaren and Racing Point. Renault would like to return to the top three in the constructors, something they hope to achieve next year with Alonso. They are now only seven points behind McLaren, who currently hold third.

"In Mugello we were faster than we thought"

Team boss Cyril Abiteboul does have an explanation for the fluctuating results this season. "The first eight races of the season were like this: the more fast corners on a circuit, the further back we were. In the fast corners our downforce was not stable. In Mugello we were able to break that for the first time, we were there faster than expected," he says to Auto, Motor und Sport. 

"There's probably more in the car, we just have to get it out. We were nowhere in Barcelona, for example, and at Spa we were extremely competitive. Maybe it's not the circuit type at all, maybe it's just that our car is very sensitive. If it is not quite right, we lose a lot of time. That's why we tried a lot of different setups in Mugello, and some of them proved to confirm our theory," concluded the 42-year-old Frenchman.