Renault's engineers understand why their car is lacking race pace and are hoping to fix the issue in Russia with a series of updates led by a new front wing.
In Nico Hulkenberg's hands, the RS17 has qualified seventh at the last two races but the team has only scored two points in all three 2017 races combined. The lack of performance over a race distance is clear to see, with both Hulkenberg and teammate Jolyon Palmer tending to fall back down the order from their qualifying positions.
Technical director Bob Bell says the team understands why the drivers are struggling and is working to correct the car's unwanted handling traits.
"The R.S.17 is not as well balanced as we'd like over a full stint," he said. "Whilst you can get away with this over the course of a qualifying lap -- where fresh tyres can mask the balance issue -- the performance is less consistent when you take to the longer runs of race stints.
"The R.S.17 has a somewhat nervous corner entry, followed by mid-turn understeer, followed by a nervous exit making finding traction a challenge. If we can address these areas, our drivers will have a very effective race car at their disposal. We believe the problems are aero related, so we're primarily looking for the solution there. Once we have the entry-phase of the corner sorted, the rest should follow more easily.
"The big positive is that the car has the basic pace to be able to be qualified well. Our current issue is extracting that pace in a race scenario. If you have the pace the key is maintaining it; it's easier to translate qualifying pace to race pace than to find basic performance."
Renault tested a new front wing last week in Bahrain and Bell hopes that will help improve the car's race pace at this weekend's Russian Grand Prix.
"We have a reasonable understanding of why this is and have a number of developments to address this in the realm of aerodynamics and suspension. We tested new parts -- including a new front wing -- in Bahrain designed to add more aero-performance to the car and also make it slightly more benign to engender better race pace. It's a positive of testing somewhere where you've just had a grand prix that there is a lot of comparable data for evaluation."