After the first six races of the year, the Renault F1 team is now seeing the biggest weakness of its car, last highlighted in Barcelona – rather embarrassingly a race that saw the Renault CEO attend.

Cyril Abiteboul, the Renault F1 team’s principal manager, has pointed out the RS20’s biggest weakness this year as namely its aerodynamic package.

On Sunday in Barcelona – a track on which F1 cars drive with a high aerodynamic load – the Renault team scored no points in the race and both drivers failed to make it into Q3 on Saturday in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

For Abiteboul, there is no longer any doubt that the RS20’s biggest weakness is now known after the F1 team raced six races on four different tracks [Spielberg, Budapest, Silverstone, Barcelona].

“Although our car has taken a step forward, whenever we need a high aerodynamic load – this was the case in Austria, even more so in Budapest and again in Barcelona – we are less competitive. “explains Cyril Abiteboul on Canal+.

“As soon as we unload a little bit – like Silverstone and I hope that will also be the case in Spa and Monza – we are more competitive.

“So, we know what we’re missing, we need to put more load, we put some on this winter, but we need more.

“We need to be able to accelerate, we have no excuse not to be able to do what teams like McLaren or even AlphaTauri do. We can see that they can be extremely competitive. ”

Renault is expected to introduce an aerodynamic update on the RS20, but it will certainly not arrive at the next two races at Spa and Monza – two tracks on which F1 cars drive with very little downforce.