Why Renault progress could be impossible to see

The tale of Renault in Formula 1's V6 turbo-hybrid era is a repetitive one in desperate need of a fresh plot. Mercedes stole a march on all its rivals from the beginning, and ever since then Renault's confident catch-up talk has been dispelled by missed targets, disappointment or a combination of the two. Its latest bout of positivity speaks of higher targets being met and bigger steps being made than ever before.

Arguably the biggest problem for Renault this year, following its Red Bull split, is that it has effectively been sidelined in the engine battle. It's very unlikely to be fighting for wins, and thus whatever progress has been made will be largely irrelevant. Neither the works team or McLaren look ready to be in victory contention, which means Mercedes, Ferrari and (who would have thought this 12 months ago?) Honda will be the manufacturers most pertinent to the 2019 season.

That doesn't mean Renault can't prove Red Bull wrong for switching to Honda, though, or that it has nothing to fight for. Its F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul declared a "substantial" step had been made with its 2019 engine, and, according to Renault, pre-season testing validated this progress. That would put it on course to cement its team as best of the rest, start to close the gap to Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, and set the tone for fighting for wins and ultimately the title.

"Everything we actually developed and measured on the dyno was the same as what we see out on track," says Renault's engine technical director Remi Taffin. "I think we hit our targets. We're happy with what we have achieved."

Taffin talks about Renault's 2019 progress as "a big step over the winter... one of the biggest we did over the past five years, especially when we look at our winter development time".

He says the targets were "high", which is significant considering last year Renault admitted it had underestimated what was required. There did not seem to be any major reliability concerns in testing either. If this is all accurate, then perhaps Renault has finally produced what its vocal critic Red Bull claimed it never got.

It's important to put Renault's latest confident proclamations in the full context, though, and it doesn't make for particularly pleasant reading.

Back in 2014, Taffin admitted after the first race that it was obviously behind Mercedes but claimed its product had "the necessary components to achieve this recovery". Red Bull went on to win three races that year, but Renault did not catch Mercedes.

In 2015, Renault introduced a "fundamental" overhaul of its engine. In revealing the new concept, Abiteboul said: "We have made a very big step in performance and will be more reliable." But at the start of the season Renault's reliability and performance was "a bit of a mess" according to Red Bull, and Abiteboul had to concede that "a race-winning engine on merit is not something that is going to happen this year".

While Red Bull have won races since then, an obvious gap to Mercedes and Ferrari has remained. Renault's 2015 season was so bad that Red Bull tried, and failed, to secure an engine from Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda, but eventually had to continue in a marriage of sub-optimal convenience (albeit with the Renault engines re-badged as Tag Heuer).

Renault will rightly point to its best haul in this engine era, Red Bull's four victories, as evidence of genuine progress in 2018 and validation of its concept's potential

Renault surprised itself with its progress through 2016 as Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo claimed a win apiece, but reached the end of the development curve for its concept and changed "95%" of the engine for '17. By the middle of the season it was admitting it had made too big a change over the winter, and paid the price with reliability struggles.

Finally, in 2018, Renault's "draconian" response to those reliability problems was to set too conservative a performance target. It started behind Ferrari and Mercedes and arguably fell further behind, rather than catch up, over the season as it fell victim to the relentless development war between F1's two title contenders.

So, why should we consider Renault's claims about 2019 to be true? What makes the positivity, the promise of high targets being met, the expectation of a better year, any different to the past? As Verstappen has been so keen to point out before, it is effectively the same old song.

"The pressure is just the pressure we put on ourselves," says Taffin. "We have to put some pressure on, and that's why we're here. The way we developed for this year is no different to what we did last year. I think it's now a year or two we're discussing these things, but sometimes we need some more time to develop.

"The one thing we have kept on is some concept that we had for the last 18 months, and it's started to deliver, and we feel that we will be developing more and more."

Renault will rightly point to its best haul in this engine era, Red Bull's four victories, as evidence of genuine progress in 2018 and validation of its concept's potential.

Last year's successes included the much-awaited introduction of an MGU-K design that had its initial development in 2016 but was too problematic to be used, which resulted in Renault relying on older technology. Renault was too wary of running its 'Spec C' engine in '18, but Red Bull took the gamble and the upgraded unit ran reliably enough to make Verstappen a regular victory threat in the closing stages of the season.

However, the positivity of 2018 was offset by several reliability problems, a fundamental deficit to Mercedes and Ferrari and an emerging vulnerability to Honda.

You cannot afford to constantly give someone the benefit of the doubt. But a decent rule of thumb is that if someone is willing to admit something has gone badly, they deserve to be listened to when they start to talk more confidently.

Renault did not spend every moment from 2014 to '17 preaching brilliance, only to suddenly change its tune last year. One of Renault's best traits through its troubles has been its honesty and ability to front up to its mistakes or shortcomings.

This is a significant year for Renault but it isn't make or break. Unless its own team or McLaren make massive strides through the year, it's tough to see how whatever progress is made this year will translate into victories this season or in 2020.

What Renault can do is focus on putting the building blocks in place this year, free from the pressure of its inadequacies being so ruthlessly exposed and criticised in public. Maybe that's what it needs more than anything else. As Abiteboul points out, with outspoken Red Bull out of the picture this is "the first time we can fully control our communication". A year off from being sledged by its customer, while spending life in the midfield, worked quite well for Honda last year, after all.

It's wrong to say Renault has been incompetent, as much as Red Bull made you think it at times, or to declare Renault is a million miles from where it needs to be. Taffin rightly points out that the engine is a lot closer to the top of that pecking order than the team's car is in terms of the chassis rankings.

Something dramatic will still need to happen for that to translate into a major result this season, though. Even if Renault has finally produced what Red Bull never got, we are unlikely to see that in terms of headline-grabbing performances.

Renault needs to make gains this season, not another setback in its cycle of promising a lot and taking a while to deliver it. Above all, it needs real evidence of progress, even if that's not going to be possible through results alone.