Renault's car last year was derived from the 2015 Lotus, which used a Mercedes engine, and thus there were obvious compromises in the final design as the marque swapped the German firm's power unit for its own engine.

This year, however, the chassis and power unit departments in Enstone and Viry-Chatillon have worked more closely than ever before to ensure that the overall package is stronger.

"All the talk is about the chassis and the new regulations, but actually the power unit is completely new," Bell told Motorsport.com. "There's almost no resemblance to last year's power unit, no carry over, clean sheet of paper.

"We've done that to really try and eke out the most performance that we can. We've been able to achieve that with better integration with the chassis.

"There is a lot to be gained from that, and of course being a full works team we can exploit that.

"But even within the core of the engine, forgetting about integration, Viry have done a fantastic job in developing the engine to maintain the superb level of reliability they enjoyed last year, but at the same time give us another performance step."

Bell, who played a part in Mercedes' preparation for the hybrid era during his 2011-2014 stint with the team before joining Renault last year, says he specifically worked on fostering an extra focus on engine integration.

"The message I could bring from Mercedes, which is not rocket science, is the importance of the unification of the engine and chassis teams, the importance of close collaboration and integration, and not expecting anything but the best for the car.

"Because on the Sunday afternoon we race the car – we don't race the engine, we don't race the chassis.

"There's no points for horsepower, there's no points for wind tunnel CL. It's about the car. So that's what I've been teaching."

Rule change doesn't wipe out Renault disadvantage,

Bell has downplayed the suggestion that, after last year's compromises, the 2017 rule change has given Renault a perfect opportunity to catch up.

"I wouldn't say we lucked in, because you could say we lucked out last year. These things tend to balance out. It's been to our advantage, because we're playing catch-up, to have the playing field reset.

"But of course there will be teams out there who will have been working on these cars since the middle of 2015. We couldn't do that, we started at the beginning of 2016. So we're a little bit behind in some respects even with these guys."

In-season gains of "well over a second"

In line with predictions of what is predicted to be a "relentless" development race, Bell expects all teams to make significant gains over the course of the first year of the new rules.

"Normally if you took last year and recent years, for example, we could make as much progress in a season as we would one from one season to the next. Say, typically, if we found a second between one season and the next, we might find a second between the start and end of the season.

"This year the jury is out a little bit on how much we'll find. It's coloured, of course, by the season to season differential, because the regulations are so different. Now we're there, and we're just developing over a season, I'm sure we'll find well over a second between start and end of season."