Renault Sport managing director Cyril Abiteboul believes a frantic in-season development 'arms race' will hinder F1's smaller teams in 2017, quickly leaving them behind.
Renault's top brass has set a fifth-place finish in the Constructors' standings as its base target for the season.
An achievement that will obviously require reliability, performance and steady points-scoring, but also the resources necessary to keep its RS17 pointing in the right direction on the development front.
A luxury Abiteboul believes its rivals do not have.
"It's that sort of thing when you're thinking about your target, you are not really thinking about who is behind, you're thinking about who is ahead," the Frenchman said at Renaults RS 17 launch yesterday.
"We know Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull will be ahead. The question is McLaren, Renault, I have my view on Williams.
"This season will also really be an arms race. I really feel for the teams who are under resourced because clearly when I see this car that we are presenting today is not the car that will test in Barcelona and the car in Barcelona is not the car that will race in Melbourne.
"Race by race we've got an introduction of new parts. Frankly, I have been in a small team [Caterham], you know that it was not super successful, but I really feel for those teams that will have to keep that resource, the regulations will be very difficult for small teams."
Abiteboul is predicting difficult times ahead for teams such as Force India, Haas and Sauber. F1's massive regulation overhaul has required substantial investment, and the smaller teams are now left with limited means with which to develop and reach the end of the season.
"I think most of the car build budget for Force India will be gone by now just to cope with the new regulations.
"So that is something that we are also taking into account. With the level of resources that we have we should be easily capable of beating teams like Haas, like Force India and so on and so forth."
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