The French manufacturer's drivers Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer have generated some encouragement by earning a 10th place apiece in the last two races.

And while there is no more development in the pipeline for the Renault RS16, Vasseur is certain the team is continuously getting better and can strive for higher goals.

“I think we are improving,” Vasseur told Motorsport.com. “We are now fighting with the Toro Rosso and the Haas. It’s another step, but we have to be consistently in this position.

"Next target will be to have two cars into the points. We are not so far from the top of Q2, and that will be the next target for us.

“I think in the exploitation [of the package] we can make progress, and we are making progress race after race. We have to continue like this.

"We don’t expect a huge step because we won’t introduce any updates, but I think it’s the same for everybody, and the grid will stay more or less consistent. We have to pay attention to details.”

Impressed with Palmer

Vasseur praised Palmer’s drive at Sepang, where the Briton used an aggressive one-stop strategy to go from 19th on the grid to 10th in the race.

“The strategy was a good one, and Jo did a very good job on the tyre management also," said Vasseur.

"He was able to push when we asked him to do it, and be very conservative at some other stages of the race. Now we have to build up the results, to continue like this.

“He was very close to scoring points in Budapest, until a couple of laps before the end. He was very disappointed after quali because I think the pace was there, and he could have expected a much better result than he got.”