Renault aiming for comfortable P4 in 2018

Renault's chief technical officer Bob Bell has said that his team need to be in a position where it can "comfortably maintain" P4 in the constructors' championship.

Renault finished sixth in the constructors' championship and have a talented driver line up of Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz for 2018.

Bell told the media: "Our team is being managed for the very top in a very sensible way.

"I suppose one way to look at it is to say we were sixth in the championship last year, we need to get ourselves into a position where we can comfortably maintain fourth in the championship.

"If you look at a team like Force India, they've been able to achieve that, so we ought to be able to do that same job with roughly similar resources.

"We have to prove ourselves at every step of the way. Once we've done that, then we can start having a discussion about what it's going to take to move into the top three and take on Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, because they are in another league again in terms of resources."

Bell sounds optimistic over Renault's future, considering their best finish since the Renault name returned to Formula One is sixth place, achieved multiple times by Hulkenberg.

Bell also said that pre-season testing was succesful for Renault, telling the media: "It is looking slightly better than what we thought we'd see from the wind tunnel results so we are pleased about that."