Renault reveals revamped F1 livery

Having held a team launch in Paris in February, the French car manufacturer had hinted that the original colour scheme unveiled there would be tweaked for the start of the season.

At a media launch in Melbourne on Wednesday night, Renault showed off the definite colours it will be racing from the Australian Grand Prix onwards.

The new RS16 livery design is dominated by yellow, with gold segments at the back.

"It is matte, which has some connection with the road cars," explained Renault F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul. "You can see some bits of black which we decided to keep because we understand there was a lot of enthusiasm for the car we tested over the winter.

"You can also see some gold at the back of the car. It will be even more visible on the race car - which is a statement for where we want to go and nothing less than that."

Top six target

Renault has been open that it expects it will take three years before it is in a position to regularly challenge for podium finishes.

And while it focuses on a ramping up of its staff and infrastructure following the takeover of Lotus last winter, the team knows that there will be no dramatic step forward in results this year.

Speaking at pre-season testing earlier this month, Renault F1 chief Abiteboul said that a top six finish in the constructors' championship was what he would like to target.

However, he says there had not yet been an agreement among senior team figures about what they were aiming for.

“I would like this consensus to be in the region of number six position in the championship,” he said. “Six is what we did last year, I would be struggling to explain or justify to anyone why we would be doing worse than that.

“Okay we moved from Mercedes to Renault engines, but when I talk about building an ambition, it is very difficult to put ambition in a group of 1000 people in Viry and Enstone if we should say we are going to do worse this year than the previous year.

“I mean the only way is up, as we say, so we will not be aiming for anything less than sixth.”