Daniel Ricciardo believes adopting the right mentality is “half the battle” for Renault’s hopes of moving up the Formula 1 grid.
Ricciardo arrived at Renault off the back of spending five years competing for a Red Bull squad that regularly challenged for grand prix wins, and which won titles from 2010-13.
Renault has not competed at the sharp end of the Formula 1 grid in its current iteration, with its most recent victory coming under the Lotus guise in early 2013.
The manufacturer has not taken a podium finish since its full-time return in 2016, scoring ninth, sixth, and fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, before slipping to sixth this year.
“From day 1 when I walked in there were already quite a few things already in place, from an engineering point of view and the structure of personnel and meetings,” said Ricciardo.
“[There was] analysis of everything, tyre analysis, chassis development, all this.
“But I’d say that the big thing I probably felt was when I joined Red Bull, they were already winners.
“I noticed when I came here [to Renault] there was a bit of as lack of confidence because they had not won in a long time.
“It is not arrogance, just in the team there is a certain level of confidence or pride, which I didn’t feel was at Red Bull’s level. For good reason. But we are trying to get that going.”
Renault has had a difficult campaign but has shown flashes of promise, most prominently in Canada, when Ricciardo qualified fourth, before leading team-mate Nico Hulkenberg for sixth in race trim.
“In Canada that was a moment I actually thought things had really changed,” he said.
“We qualified fourth and everyone was happy, but it wasn’t like we’d won the world title. It was like, alright we belong here now, and this is…so there was a really switch. That is half the battle with anything.
“As a driver as well, we are all talented at this level, but it is like that mentality: do you have what it takes to really believe that you can do it.
“It is the same with the team, mechanics, engineers, if they’ve got that mentality to really believe they can make they step, then that’s half the battle. That’s big thing I’ve seen, which is positive.”
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