While not exactly a newsflash, a top Renault official admits the team is nowhere near ready to challenge for the Formula 1 world title.

However, not even the team’s new executive director Marcin Budkowski thinks Renault has a chance at catching the big dogs in the sport anytime soon. Budkowski, a former leading FIA official who has controversially switched to the French carmaker’s works F1 effort, has been active in restructuring Renault. He says those efforts will need to continue even after current Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo joins the team in 2019.

“We’re currently 1.5 seconds from the best,” Budkowski admitted to French media outlet Auto Hebdo. “It would be ridiculous to say that we can erase this deficit when you consider organizations like Mercedes and Ferrari. But Renault is now a big organization that continues to grow. At the end of the season, we will have grown by 50 percent compared to the workforce present at the buyout of Lotus in December 2015.

“We will be close to 700 people at the end of the year, but that does not mean that the fruit of the collective work of these 700 people will be visible from January. When people arrive, a time of adaptation is necessary. When you have young people, you have to train them. And we recruited a lot of apprentices and newly graduated talents. We are only now seeing the benefits of the recruitments of 2016 and 2017 now.”

Recently, four-time world champion Alain Prost said that his campaign to return Renault to the pinnacle of Formula 1 has already begun.

Having returned to the team as a wide-ranging adviser, Prost says his recent moves alongside team boss Cyril Abiteboul have all been focused on achieving the team’s goal of long-term sustained success.

He admits the challenge of trying to push from fourth in the constructor’s championship to a title contender in the next few years was too irresistible to say no to when he was offered his position last year.

“I like a return,” he said.

“If it was going to Mercedes today — they’re at the top — I don’t think I would have the motivation. Now it’s so difficult to get back to the top that I find it very interesting.”

Prost said a key part of his future plans is Aussie driver Ricciardo.