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Nico Hulkenberg is confident that his new Renault team have made progress throughout the winter testing period, but he also doubts its ability to make progress into the midfield - and stay there - in 2017.
Following the conclusion of the first pre-season test in Barcelona, the R.S.17 was the fourth quickest car of them all, but the French squad's form has dipped since then, thanks to regular issues with the ERS that have limited the new car's track time.
Test sessions are not necessarily indicative of a team's true position come the start of the season, but Hulkenberg nevertheless believes he can predict where Renault will be over the year to come.
"I think Renault is better-placed than last year," he said. "The team moved closer to the midfield, for sure. Points will be difficult, as I think four teams are clearly in front. Then there's not much left. It's going to be difficult."
The German then stated that Renault would come away from Barcelona feeling regret and apparent disappointment, as it has fallen short of completing everything it wanted to: "I don't think we matched our expectations," he continued. "We discovered a few things that are not as we would like them to be.
"So this is how it is. Now we have to work hard to improve and get into the right direction. We would have liked to do a bit more setup tests, which we couldn't do as we were lacking time due to reliability issues. So we couldn't do everything we would have liked."
Mason Hawker
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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