Despite leaving Hungary with no points, its drivers finishing twelfth and fifteenth, Renault claims its performance showed a clear improvement.

Indeed, Jolyon Palmer looked set to claim his first point of the season, and the team's first since Russia, until an unforced error saw him spin out of tenth. Despite his obvious disappointment, the Briton subsequently described his performance as his 'best-ever'.

And while on paper Renault's Hungary performance might appear nothing to boast about, Cyril Abiteboul insists it was a turning point.

"We go to the final race of the first part of the year with our plan back on track," said the Frenchman. "We knew that the first races would be about recovery and setting the foundations, but we had a tougher ride than expected.

"However in Budapest we demonstrated that we had taken a tangible step forward, not just in our own performance but in relative performance to our rivals. We were able to out-race Haas, Sauber and even Force India and Jolyon was just a sniff away from his first points."

"There are a number of factors to be optimistic about," added technical director Nick Chester. "We were in a position to get a point for Jolyon on pace and it wasn't a race of attrition so it was a genuine performance.

"We found quite a lot of this pace in the car both from new components and from different approaches to set-up," he revealed. "We learnt a lot at the Silverstone test and this is filtering through.

"We're certainly getting a better balance with the car to use the tyres more efficiently and we're also making improvements in low-speed and medium-speed corners. The race pace showed that FP3 was not an illusion.

"We have further advances in the same direction," he concluded. "There are a few more parts to go on the car and we're learning at every race so we would like to see some further improvement."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Hockenheim, here.