Joylon Palmer says that his and teammate Kevin Magnussen's recent crashes do not provide an accurate reflection of driver ability at Renault.
Renault heads to Baku for the Grand Prix of Europe after a pair of scrappy races, with a double retirement at the Monaco Grand Prix being followed by another point-less outing in Canada. Palmer crashed out early on in Monte Carlo while Magnussen's race came to an end after a collision with Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat, before the Dane saw his race compromised in Montreal as he slammed into the wall ahead of qualifying.
Reputations in Formula One can be as easily brought back down to earth as they can be built up, but Palmer believes the recent incidents are nothing more than one-offs.
"Obviously it doesn't make us look good if we crash the car and when the cars are difficult to drive there is a higher chance to crash it," said Palmer. "Honestly I've only crashed the car on one weekend of the year, which was Monaco, but I did have quite a big one in the race which was quite a unique situation. In practice I had two more so Monaco was a very bad weekend but forgetting that one I haven't crashed the car.
"It's not like we are complete crashing drivers but it's just unfortunate that Monaco was an especially bad weekend for me. Kev had a strange crash in Canada as well; the car is difficult. Bumpy circuits with the walls close, it's not easy to be pushing and to find the gains to get into Q2 without making any mistakes.
"If you make a mistake on those tracks then you are in the wall. I'm sure as the season goes on that people will realise that the car will get better and we won't be crashing so I don't think it's going to be a theme of the year."
Magnussen has recorded Renault's only points of 2016 thanks to his seventh place finish at the Russian Grand Prix. He played down the significance of his Montreal crash and says he is glad to have a quick turnaround between races in Canada and Azerbaijan.
"I think it's always good when you have back-to-back weekends, it's easier to brush it off and move on to the next one because it's only a few days away. I didn't have a very good weekend in Canada but I don't actually think that not running in qualifying hurt us that much because we kind of ended up where our pace would have been, maybe we would have been 15th or 14th maximum with a qualifying lap but there's no points for that anyway."