Spain will be the first race of Renault's return to Formula 1, according to managing director Cyril Abiteboul, who described the opening four races as a "recovery" period following the takeover of Lotus.
At the end of the 2015 season, Renault completed a late takeover of the Lotus team, rebranding it Renault Sport F1 over the winter before relaunching in the new year. However much of the time since then has been spent organising the team, rather than developing the car – a task that will only really begin this weekend in Spain.
Whilst the team will introduce several upgrades for the race and the following two-day test – including a new engine – Abiteboul admits scoring points isn't yet a regular target despite the success in Russia last time out.
"Getting points in Russia was a good fillip for the team after the tough race in China," said the Frenchman. "We were reliable and competitive enough to out-race our closest competition and that took a lot of hard work.
"That said, we acknowledge it took a cocktail of circumstances and repeating the result in Spain would be tough."
Abiteboul describes the return to Spain as the first true race as the Renault team since taking over Lotus, and is confident they will begin to make steady progress up the pecking order from this weekend.
"Barcelona is the start of our development program and we will see some new developments coming through in the race, with several others scheduled for the test afterwards," he explained.
"We look at this race as a marker in the sand: the exit point of our recovery from the takeover and the first race as ‘our’ team. It will start small, but I’m confident we will gain momentum as we go forward."
