Renault Form💜ula 1 team principal 🌱Cyril Abiteboul concedes his side has “fallen short” of its “high expectations” at the opening two rounds of the 2019 season.

The French manufacturer is looking to build on its fourth place finish in the constructors’ championship but currently sits s✨eventh following a disappointing start to the new campaign.

Nic🧸o Hulkenberg turned in a strong drive to score points at the Melbourne season-opener, before Renault s✤uffered a double retirement at the Bahrain Grand Prix with both of its cars occupying a place inside the top ten.

“The start of the 2019 season has fallen short of our high expectౠations,” Abiteb🍎oul said.

“Our overall co♐mpetitiveness is good enough 🅘for our drivers to be racing in the top 10 and closer to the top teams than last year, but we have suffered from reliability issues.

“We move onto China with caution, but also with a resolution to really get thꦛe season going💙.”

Renault w🍷ill bring a new bodywork, braking🌊 and suspension updates in its bid to pull off a “well-executed weekend” in China.

New signing Daniel Ricciardo, who admitted he has been overdriving his RS19 in an attempt to get up to speed with hi✃s new environment, feels💦 Renault has far more potential to unleash from its 2019 package.

“I’m certainly getting there in terms of extract🐻ing the maximum and getting more comfortable,” Ricciardo explained.

“These things do take time, but it’s good to iron out these details going forward. We’ll get there soon and sure enough and I’m confident wꦏe’re he🗹ading in the right direction.

“We showed signs of that over the race weekend, going from a struggle on Friday, followed by an imp꧟rovement on Saturday to being in and amon⛄gst it on Sunday.

“The car clearly has pace, but for me, it’s about finding all of it. I feel there’♕s꧂ a lot more to come.”

Hulkenberg said he is looking to take the positives from his own performance in Bahrain, hav🔯ing charged from the back of the grid to sixth prior to his retirement.

“I would like♔ to take the positives fꦉrom Bahrain,” he added.

“Disappointment can happe🐽n in racing, but we move on as a team, learn from what happened and do everything possible to prevent it from happening again.

“We showed we had good race pace💎. There was a lot of overtaking, which we were able to hold our own in and we executed a slick two-stop, together with good pit-stops from the crew.

“We must build on these positives a꧑nd head into China knowing that if we string together a decent enough weekend, we’re more than capable of leadi🍌ng the midfield.”