Renault has continued to bolster their fourth position in the Constructors' Championship after another solid finish in the points and coming out 'best of the rest' at the Canadian Grand Prix.
The weekend started to come together for the team after securing seventh and ninth in qualifying, which boded well on a track which suited their Force India better – their nearest rivals.
During the race, the French outfit continued to keep the Force India's within reach, Nico Hulkenberg continued to show his consistent form by finishing again as the 'best of the rest' in seventh place.
Carlos Sainz Jr collided with Sergio Perez into Turn 1, The Spaniard escaped an incident with the Force India with no damage, Perez felt aggrieved at this and called for a penalty against Sainz Jr. The stewards took no further action on the incident which meant he was able to follow Hulkenberg to secure eighth place.
"We executed the race well today and it was a good effort from everyone," said Hulkenberg.
"Ten points in the Constructors’ Championship is positive for us and we’ve extended our lead in fourth ahead of our rivals.
"It was a close battle today, I lost a position at the start, but I managed to get the overcut on Ocon by going two laps longer, as he was holding me up a little bit on that first stint. From then, it was about managing the tyres, which was quite tough as degradation was kicking in towards the end."
Team boss Cyril Abiteboul was happy with race result and felt it was evidence of their continued improvements in both of their French and English bases, especially with the upgraded power unit. The Frenchman is also aiming to continue on closing the very wide gap between the midfield and the top three teams.
"We enjoyed good judgement from the pit wall which enabled a strategy to recover from a not so perfect start," said Abiteboul
"The ten points achieved today are very healthy for the Constructors’ Championship. The entire weekend illustrated the beneficial teamwork between Viry and Enstone.
"We delivered upgrades to the Power Unit and chassis and these worked extremely well. We did have difficult moments on Friday and Saturday but the team has done an amazing job of recovering from that, including changing a turbo one hour before qualifying with all hands on deck in a magnificent display of teamwork.
"We now aim to build on this result by looking at what can be done to reduce the performance deficit to the top three teams."
Renault holds a 16 point lead over power unit customers, McLaren and a further 28 over Force India in sixth place.
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