Prost claims Renault could've beaten McLaren in 2019 "without the incidents"

After a slow start, McLaren have been on top of the midfield battle for most of the season, with former Renault driver Carlos Sainz leading the way for the Woking-based team.

Renault, on the other hand, have shown flashes of brilliance, like at Monza where they finished fourth and fifth, but have lacked consistency across the board, with reliability issues coming into play as well. In Bahrain, for example, both RS19's broke down in the final three laps of the race when in a strong points-scoring position.

Four-time champion Prost thinks this is no cause for pessimism, however, as the Frenchman mainly thinks individual incidents and bad luck have been the difference between McLaren and Renault rather than a gulf in performance.

"There is a big difference,"  he was quoted by Motorsport-Total.com.

"Not only did we lose points [after Japan], but the competition won a lot [of points]."

"Now, at the end of the season, we have to show up again. That will be good for team morale. We've had a difficult season."

After strongly leading the midfield in 2018, Renault's target was to further close the gap with the top three teams ahead of them in 2019. McLaren's rise was not expected, however, with the papaya orange cars beating the French works team in most Grands Prix.

"In the second half of the season, we've been good in the races, but sometimes things like first lap race incidents happen."

This has certainly been the case, with Nico Hulkenberg suffering contact in lap one at the Singapore Grand Prix which forced him to pit after one lap, while Daniel Ricciardo saw his Russian Grand Prix end early because of contact with Antonio Giovinazzi.

"All in all, our situation isn't very stable yet as we've made changes in the team's organisation. However, I'm not pessimistic about the future. It just takes time to get there [further up the grid]. For example, we know we could've beaten McLaren if not for all the incidents."