Why Renault does not need to panic just yet

Only three top-10 finishes in 17 races, with a car that has qualified near the back of the grid for most of the season. Renault's return to Formula 1 as a works entrant has certainly not been glorious.

As well as this paucity of results, and difficulty convincing some experienced F1 drivers and personnel to join its cause, paddock insiders have raised serious questions concerning Renault's chain of command.

But even though this season has been bad, the important thing is to stay calm and look at the bigger picture.

It took Renault three seasons to get into shape after buying out Benetton at the start of the 2000 season - the first of what is now two returns to F1 as a manufacturer entry in the modern era.

The 2001 season, the first proper year under Renault control, was Benetton's worst ever in Formula 1. The Renault name appeared above the door in '02, but it took until mid-'03 to become a winner again. Two seasons later, Renault celebrated the first of its back-to-back world championships with Fernando Alonso.

The first few campaigns were difficult, but the path was one of gradual improvement on track, while diligently working to turn the oil tanker that is the wider infrastructure of an F1 team gradually onto the desired course.

There simply are no shortcuts in F1. The exception is probably Brawn GP, an opportunistic takeover of the mothballed Honda works team, which was anyway on the verge of a massive breakthrough after two seasons of struggle.

There again, Honda took over BAR in 2004, won a single race in '06 (opportunistically in Hungary), and pulled out just before Jenson Button drove on to world championship glory in '09, in a car designed using Honda's investment.

F1's current factory powerhouse Mercedes took over that operation to make its manufacturer comeback in 2010. That first season was relatively difficult. OK, it was not a disaster, but nevertheless a reversal from top of the pile to fourth in the standings in the space of one season.

That's a loss of three places - the same number Renault has dropped since it took over the sixth placed Lotus team at the end of last year...

By 2012 Mercedes had a car capable of winning races, which helped convince Lewis Hamilton to jump ship from McLaren. He wouldn't have been interested at the end of '10, because the team was still building up into a credible force.

"If a driver wants to win a championship next year it's probably much easier to do it with Ferrari or with Mercedes than with Renault, but if they want to be world champion in three, four, five years they have to think about it," argues Renault team principal Fred Vasseur.

"The clever drivers, they did always the good choice. Remember Lewis. When he left McLaren everybody was joking about the decision because he was winning with McLaren. At the end of the day he was right.

"All the [successful] teams were built on drivers - Red Bull with Seb [Vettel], or Ferrari with Michael [Schumacher]. We have to attract the good ones for the future."

Mercedes took over a championship-winning team to make its return to F1 as a full-blown manufacturer entrant, but that outfit was effectively a skeleton crew following Honda's pullout.

It took time to build a robust operation, and invest in the sort of manpower and infrastructure necessary to compete properly and consistently at the front of the grid.

For the past three years we have witnessed the result of that gradual process: total domination of F1, but only after several seasons of slog.

That's the crumb of comfort Renault should cling to. Yes, its return to works status has been difficult, perhaps even haphazard behind the scenes, but realistically there is no need to panic unless proper results don't start to arrive in year three of the project, which would mean 2018 in this case.

If you consider this season a non-entity, because of how late Renault arrived on the scene, then 2019 is likely to be the point at which things really should start coming together.

This season the race team has proven it is still perfectly capable, scoring points on three occasions with a chassis that was designed in 2014 around a completely different engine.

"We know the car didn't improve and won't improve before the end of the season, but we have to pay attention to every single detail to be able to improve race after race [with what we have]," says Vasseur.

"The car is the same, but we have improved on the track operations, the tyre management, on every single detail of the team. For me this is the most important point.

"We don't have to wait for next year. That will be a huge step, but we have to be focused and try to improve [where we can] week after week.

"It was my interrogation when we decided to switch [resources] for '17. We have to keep everybody under pressure, we have to keep them as racers, and motivated by the racing each weekend, even if it's tough.

"If you look at the first winter test in Barcelona I think we were more or less one second off the Toro Rosso, and in Malaysia we were in front. It's not a success, but it's showing we are in a good way for the trackside operation.

"I'm more than pleased with this, because they [have shown they] are pure racers, and they are really dedicated to the job. It's paying now. We are not on the podium, but we are improving. We are fighting for P12 or P11 the same as if we were P1.

"You ask me why I'm so confident for the future - perhaps it's because of the pressure, the job done, and the motivation in a tough situation. I know if they are dedicated when we are struggling it will pay off at the end."

Sure the current car is terrible on bumpy circuits, and lacks downforce generally, but Renault didn't arrive until last December, so this season was always going to be a write-off. The important thing is for the race team to tread water as best it can while the wider operation is rebuilt.

"I'm fully passionate working with the mechanics, the engineers, the drivers - they are fully committed and this is the most important thing," Vasseur adds. "We know we have a common target. It's a long way [to go], but as long as it will be a common target I'm fully convinced we will be able to deliver.

"I don't want to be disturbed by the noise around the situation. We have to be focused on the job. You will have always guys complaining and criticising everything.

"[That's] OK, but we are fully dedicated, we are improving on track. We had a very good pace in Singapore - fighting with Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso. Before that we were 1.5s slower than everybody.

"We did a huge step so far. We are close to being in Q3 now. We have to keep the faith, keep the target in mind, and be focused on this, not disturbed by everything."

By the end of 2015, Renault's Enstone base had been so starved of proper investment for so long it was unrecognisable from the championship and race-winning force it was previously.

This time last year the team formerly known as Lotus was locked out of its Suzuka hospitality unit, and was turning up to races not knowing whether it would be able to compete. Staff understandably defected elsewhere. This can all be rectified, but it takes time.

"You can't jump from 400 people to 800 people in one week, you have to do it step by step," Vasseur explains. "It makes no sense also to recruit just because you want to make numbers. It would be a mistake.

"We have to reinforce the team position by position. As soon as we have the feeling we have a weakness we have to fill the position. I can't give you names, because it's unfair, but we will reinforce the team and improve over the next weeks and months.

"When you reinforce the design office you have to [also] reinforce the production, the windtunnel etc. It makes no sense to have 20 guys in the windtunnel if you have nobody to design the parts. You have to do it step by step.

"For me it's not a matter of numbers, we need to attract the good guys. You will see over the next weeks that we are doing the job. We are on a good path."

Renault has already begun a multi-million pound building project on site at Enstone. This is encouraging. Of course such work won't be completed in time to make much difference to next year's car, but that's not what this is about.

This is about creating an infrastructure that can win championships in the long term, rather than simply looking to jump up one or two spots in the constructors' standings next season.

"We invested a lot," Vasseur says. "We could be brilliant on track to have a big motorhome and so on, but it's not the purpose. The purpose for a long-term project is to invest in the workshop - and we did it; to invest in CFD - and we did it.

"To invest in these kinds of things won't pay next week, but it's the basis for the future. A motorhome is a big show-off, but you won't score points with the motorhome. The CFD and the workshop is a much bigger benefit for the team.

"So far we have recruited something like 85 people since the beginning of the season, and we are increasing the size of the building. You can't decide to say 'OK I take 100 people more, they will come tomorrow, and I will have the facility'.

"We are on the way. The workshop will be ready at the beginning of '17, or mid-'17. I knew before it would take time. Everybody would like to get the results faster than is possible, but there is no way.

"We can't move faster than the tempo, we have to stick to this. We have to take our time to do it seriously, step by step. It's the only way to deliver at the end."

Next year should be better anyway. Renault will produce a bespoke car for the new regulations, designed around its own engine, with all the packaging advantages that go with being a proper works outfit.

Results are bound to improve as a result. Confidence will grow with that improvement. 2018 should be another step on from that, the point at which the recruitment and rebuilding process already underway should begin to pay proper dividends.

Only then will we see where Renault is really at, and whether it has put the right building blocks in place to become a proper force in F1 again. If not then Renault management will have to answer serious questions about the structure it has put in place, and the leadership it has shown.

"You didn't judge Mercedes after the second year - they would have had to stop!" Vasseur argues. "They struggled. '17 is an opportunity, because we will have a change of regulation. On the other hand it's maybe a bit too early for us, because the structure is not well in place.

"We have to improve step by step. We have to keep our ideas in mind and work in this direction, not over-react because of the pressure.

"I know everyone is pushing, and pushing in the same direction. I can't say 'we will be champion in the next years', but I'm fully convinced we are doing the job and are in a good direction.

"When Jean Todt joined Ferrari, it took seven years to become world champion. When Red Bull took over the [Jaguar] company, they took five years to become world champion. The same for Mercedes - they bought a world champion team and took five years to become world champion again.

"It's not possible to do it in two or three years. We have to start, not from scratch, because the team was existing, but we have to start from the current situation, and we have to work and reinforce the team. Perhaps we have to add some key people into the system - we will do it.

"The 1000 guys we have in the team [already], if you consider 400 in Viry and 600 more or less in Enstone, they are passionate, they are working like hell, and this is the basics of racing. They are fully committed. I think everyone in the team is convinced we are taking the good direction."

F1's current top three teams - Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull - have won 15 of the last 18 constructors' world championships in Formula 1 between them, but Vasseur's history is broadly correct in telling us it took several seasons of hard graft before they were ready to attain their success.

Renault is about to finish the first and most difficult of those on its journey of redemption. This is the time to keep calm and carry on.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and nothing in Formula 1 ever is either.