What happened to Renault's qualifying party mode?

From the start of the season, it was obvious that lack of a qualifying mode impacted the ability of Red Bull - the Renault benchmark team - to truly take the fight to their pace-setting rivals.

Before the race weekend at Red Bull Ring, Abiteboul was bullish when he confirmed, "We have a qualifying mode now. This applies to us and our customers. We were able to extract a bit more performance in qualifying, but now the jump is significant."

If Renault did indeed find the extra horsepower, then where was it? From Spielberg qualifying evidence it is quite clear that the Renault drivers had very little if any extra horsepower when they selected quali-mode.

Below are qualifying lap times by fastest Mercedes (Bottas), fastest Ferrari (Vettel), fastest Renault (Verstappen) and the other Renault powered drivers that made it beyond Q1, as well as Grosjean the best of the rest on the day:

It is no secret that Mercedes have a quali-mode since forever, while Ferrari has one that has come to the fore in recent races. The works teams, for whatever reason, more on tap than their customers.

Analysing the times on the day, it is clear that pole winner got himself a second or so boost when the Mercedes power plant was dialled up to the max for Q2 where they needed it to get them through to Q3 using supersofts.

That was worth around four tenths for Bottas, who then bolted on Pirelli ultras for his final Q3 run to claim pole position, his final time a second up on his Q1 time.

Ferrari tend to keep their powder dry until Q2, it went to script in Spielberg as Sebastian Vettel powered around eight tenths faster in the second stanza than he did in Q1 earlier. For the final run he found an extra tenth, in total from Q1 to Q3 the Reds had nine-tenths of a second in reserve.

Best of the Renault powered brigade was Max Verstappen who found just under four tenths between his Q1 best and his final run in the session - half what their rivals have.

Renault's Carlos Sainz outqualified Nico Hulkenberg and made it through to Q3, when he squeezed the 'quali-mode' button he found a couple of tenths. The Spaniard's Q2 effort was better, four tenths better than his Q1 best.

Hulkenberg found a couple of tenths between his best runs in the two sessions he completed on the day. He did not progress into Q3.

McLaren, who seriously need whatever horsepower they can get, clearly did not find the 'magic button' promised by Abiteboul as Fernando Alonso's Q2 time was slower than his Q1 lap while teammate Stoffel Vandoorne failed to make it out of Q1.

Haas driver Romain Grosjean, powered by Ferrari found just under half a second between his best runs in Q1 and Q3.

One could argue that Renault powered drivers had four-tenths qualifying boost on the evidence, but the stats show that in past races they have always found two or three tenths between Q1 and the final runs in Q2 - on longer tracks.

Thus the question remains: Where was the quali-mode promised by Abiteboul? Was it even there?

His own driver Hulkenberg doesn't think so when asked, after the race, to describe the difference he explained, "You don't notice a bit more performance. Something more significant needs to happen, so that it can be noticed."

"I don't even know what you're thinking, or what you've been told, what we've got. That's not earth-shattering, I can tell you that much," added Hulkenberg.

Sainz echoed his teammate, "Everyone has qualifying modes. Once you arrive to qualifying, yes it's a bit of performance, but we were certainly very far away from Haas to feel any kind of qualifying mode advantage."

Race day was point-less for the French team with Hulkenberg retiring after a spectacular engine blow up on the main straight and Sainz battling home to 12th, his race compromised by blistering tyres.

It will be interesting to see what Abiteboul's qual-mode will be capable of at Silverstone where it would be extremely handy to have...