Daniel Ricciardo is feeling the vibe ahead of his return to Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend.

The Australian scored a memorable victory at this event 12 months ago with Red Bull, capitalising on a decision to pit behind the Safety Car to come through the field score his sixth Formula 1 win.

"Up until last year, China was a circuit I always seemed to go really well at but without taking a podium," he said on Tuesday.

"I knew I was due a podium in China and last season that came alive. It was a really good win, coming from sixth on the grid.

"I probably made one of the overtakes of the year on Valtteri into the tight Turn 6, so that made it even sweeter!"

Fast forward to now though, and Ricciardo's outlook is very different as a move to Renault has yet to bring the fresh challenge and reinvigoration he was expecting.

Two retirements in the first two races certainly weren't on the cards and the French manufacturer is now admitting its shortcomings after near-simultaneous engine failures in the closing laps in Bahrain.

“Our overall competitiveness is good enough for our drivers to be racing in the top ten and closer to the top teams than last year,” Renault F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul commented.

"But we have suffered from reliability issues and have fallen short of our high expectations.”

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• Renault admit known issues caused engine failures in Bahrain

Worse for Renault, the team is struggling to gain momentum in the midfield with poor qualifying pace leaving their drivers having to come through the field in the race.

"We have improved on a couple of things and definitely I think the engine side has improved quite a lot over the winter," their second driver Nico Hulkenberg told Motorsport.com.

"Obviously [in Bahrain] we had a problem related to that, but I think that was a special case. The engine side has improved a lot."

However: "I think car and chassis aero-wise, we worked over the winter but we still have similar problems. So I feel there is where we really need to focus and come up with something better."