Renault not ready to sign Fernando Alonso for 2018 F1 season

Alonso raced for Renault from 2003-06, winning two titles, and again in 2008-09.

He has made clear he wants to be in a frontrunning car for 2018 amid the troubled situation at McLaren-Honda and intends to decide his future in September.

Though Renault is improving and regularly now fourth-fastest behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, Abiteboul fears it would still not be competitive enough for Alonso and he would become frustrated.

"Things have to be compatible so that it can be a successful association, and not just because it has been a successful association in the past," Abiteboul told Autosport.

"It's the future that we're worried about.

"He has his dynamic, I think he has urgency to be in a position to be fighting for championships again.

"We know that it's going to take us a bit of time to have a car that can offer that, so clearly the one thing that I would not want is to have a frustrated Fernando in a Renault car, that's for sure."

Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz Jr, Esteban Ocon and Robert Kubica have been linked with the second Renault seat alongside Nico Hulkenberg, currently occupied by Jolyon Palmer.

Abiteboul has made it clear that Renault still needs further answers regarding Kubica's prospects of racing in F1 again but that it is hard to get them given F1's testing limits.

"If we had no restrictions from the regulations there is a lot that we could do, by organising more testing, but it's exactly the same for a number of young drivers to try to make it into F1," said Abiteboul.

"There is a restriction in place, and it's not going to change for Robert.

"So we will have to see if the timing of what we have to do with him can work with the timing of the rest of the paddock, which is moving.

"There have been a number of announcements, and I'm sure there will be more announcements to come in the next two or three weeks, and we have to be part of that train."

Abiteboul denied that Kubica was a back-up plan if Renault failed to land a current top driver.

"I will never call Robert a plan B or plan C," he said.

"The main question is can he race again in F1? If the answer was a straightforward 'yes', you would probably not be asking me that question. But unfortunately it is not clear yet.

"A lot of people can be interesting. The fact that our car has become more or less the fourth car on the grid creates even more opportunities for us than we were maybe initially expecting."