Renault Formula 1 team had to manage "communication crisis"

The team came into the 2019 F1 season bullish about its chances of stepping clear of the midfield and closing the gap on the top three teams.

But early reliability problems and incidents cost it points, and after the Spanish Grand Prix in May Renault was down to eighth in the constructors' championship.

The team bounced back in style in the recent Canadian GP, where Daniel Ricciardo qualified fourth before he and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg finished sixth and seventh - bringing Renault up to fifth in the standings, just two points behind fourth-placed McLaren.

Abiteboul admitted the start of the campaign had been hard for both the team and him personally, because he had faced some flak for talking things up.

"It has been difficult, it has been difficult also on a personal level," he told Autosport.

"But the difficulty was simply to define what should have been an attitude, a communication strategy, in that period of time.

"When you see such a mismatch between perception based on what we actually deliver, against what I know we are capable of doing and not just capable in theory, capable of by simply executing a proper weekend, then I cannot challenge that.

"That is really difficult because you need to manage some form of communication crisis, weekend after weekend.

"And that is also a lesson about this world and the expectation and impatience of this world.

"But frankly our style, including my style, is to have a straightforward open communication and to say things where they are."

Abiteboul had been confident the arrival of an upgraded engine from Monaco last month would help turn things around, and that has proved to be the case.

The engine changes addressed a problem that had forced the team to reduce its power output since failures in Bahrain in April.

A major aero upgrade is also coming for France this weekend.

"Frankly we did nothing special, apart from doing what we should have done at every single race since the season started," Abiteboul said about the strong form in Canada.

"There is nothing new in the engine, we are just operating the engine in the way it should have been operated if we had not had the issue that we had."

Ricciardo's qualifying lap in Canada was 0.8 seconds from pole, which was 0.4s closer than Renault was in Montreal a year earlier, which Abiteboul called "exactly in line with the target" for 2019.

"The target was to start reducing the gap to the top and that is starting to happen," he added.

"And that is clearly a relief to know that we are capable of showing to the outside world what we know is happening."