The key mistake that has hindered Renault's F1 return

Formula 1 teams need no reminding that the best tactic in the build up to a new season is to under-promise and over-deliver.

The job certainly seems simple enough: pull back the covers on a car, try as much as you can to downplay the potential and promise for the campaign that lays ahead, and then rock it in Melbourne to rub the noses of the opposition into the dirt.

But sometimes, teams don't have the chance to keep a lid on things. Be it through overly-ambitious sponsors (Rich Energy's William Storey talked about Haas beating Red Bull last year), assured team owners (Adrian Reynard suggesting BAR would win its first race) or other people signing the cheques, loose lips have a habit of derailing a perfectly sensible PR strategy. Then again, getting some feel-good quotes into the public sphere on some headline-grabbing results are sometimes what people want to see.

That is exactly what happened to Renault on its F1 return in 2016 when, after months of trying to convince the board to commit to a works effort because of the potential for success, it had to lay out some clear targets.

Back at the team launch in February that year, Renault's F1 management was clear that its ambition was to start delivering podium finishes in three years. I remember speaking to F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul and suggesting the target appeared to lack ambition for a works team.

But, as time wore on and reality bit of what it would take to crack F1's established top three teams, it became clear that podium finishes were pretty much out of the question on pure pace. Worse still, last year Renault's steady march up the constructors' standings stalled as it fell behind its engine customers McLaren.

When Renault picked up the pieces from last year, after a season that its ambassador Alain Prost said this week was "not acceptable" for the long term, it became increasingly clear that the team's biggest issue was a self-imposed one.

The team wasn't a failure: it was simply that there had been a disconnect between what it set out to do and what could realistically be achieved. From the outside, it may be easy to think that such a relatively trivial matter of some vague promises to the media may mean nothing.

But when you are inside an organisation, failing to hit the heights that you've told the world you would is a less-than-ideal scenario.

"The intent was very honourable. It was taken a little bit too much for granted, and we ended up having to rush and be measured constantly against that initial roadmap" Cyril Abiteboul

Abiteboul explains: "The growth of the team has been huge. It was 450 people and it's now close to 800 now. It means a lot and it's not just figures. It's people coming with their background, with their culture and with their set of expectations.

"And the first thing that they read is you guys, it's Autosport. They listen to us, but they read you, and they will read from you what we expect from us, based on what we see is realistic.

"In my opinion, the first way to manage people is also to have the right external communication through you guys. So if you set targets that people know are not realistic, it's not the right way to bring a group of people together in my opinion. We've done that with the expectation and the target that we set on the outset.

"But it is [also] true that when you are a car maker on the scale of Renault-Nissan, you don't say that you are just entering F1. You enter F1 to aim for success."

Abiteboul says that the target proved to be a burden in its push forward, because it could not march forward at its own pace with the podium ambition weighing over it.

"What I think was wrong is probably to attach timing into it," he says.

"But I think, again, the intent was very honourable. I think [the prediction] was taken a little bit too much for granted, and we ended up having to rush and be measured constantly against that initial roadmap.

"So I think now we need to take a step back. What we are doing is not wrong, we need to work on the foundations, make sure that the foundations are healthy, make sure that we've got a clear leadership team - which we have - and now you work in logic and with time, we will have peace of mind.

"Peace of mind doesn't mean that we don't have targets, because racing against McLaren I expect for fourth will be tough. This year, it doesn't mean that it's going to be easy target, but its a targets which in my opinion is realistic.

"This is a difference from before."

There is very much a sense of Renault wanting to get more real about its plans in F1 this year. Abiteboul's remarks about not wanting to hold a launch with a 'fake' car resonated with this approach that the team's struggles were only a result of its setting unrealistic ambitions.

Prost admitted to feeling uncomfortable from the outset with the time-framed targets that were laid out back in 2016 - and thinks it hurt the team in the end. The four-time world champion was the first one to speak on stage at Renault's season launch and he was clear about what the team's objectives were now.

"It is to be back on the podium and among the very best teams globally in F1, and to be world champions one day again," he explained.

"The ambition in F1 remains the same one it has always been. But it needs to be a schedule that is realistic. We suffered from an objective that was perhaps unrealistic a few years ago..."

Pushed later on on the impact of Renault failing to hit its original objective, he said he had never wanted things to get so specific.

"If you noticed in the last few years at the tracks or whatever, I never shared this objective," he said.

"You never heard it from my mouth. I said the objective of having a podium or being world champion by 2020 or whatever.

"I don't think that was realistic considering the way we started. When we bought the team it was maybe six months too late, because a lot of people left and we always kind of seemed to have an explanation [for why things didn't work].

"But now, we have a new regulation for 2021 where maybe you could have a small change, even if I don't think that you would have a big change from the beginning. Also with the budget cap and things like this, it is going to stabilise things, but I don't think it's going to change completely.

"We need to be better at setting targets that we can hit, because there is nothing worse than setting targets that are lost before you even start" Cyril Abiteboul

"It is better to have a realistic objective. We should be a little bit humble for the next season, and then you use 2021 and the big effort for that to stabilise things, and then start another cycle. We could have a good news, a good surprise, but not next year."

Renault's declared target of fourth in the constructors' standings seems unremarkable, but it is at least one that can be achieved. And in setting realistic targets that everyone within the organisation can understand and buy into, the whole mindset is changed. Promise you are going to win races, then finishing second is a loss. Set sights on a more modest finish and a top three finish is a bonus.

Abiteboul adds: "We've learned first and foremost in managing expectations. That's one of the things where lots of people in Formula 1 [declared they] are world champion if I am honest.

"We think we need to do that better. I think it's all of us, not just myself, but it's a number of people associated to the project.

"I think we need to be better at setting targets that we can hit, because there is nothing worse than setting targets that are lost before you even start.

"That's really bad for the mindset, for the culture, and you know we should be building the team out on success, rather than on failure. And that's what I want to see more."