Latest Mercedes spec a boost for Force India, Williams

All four drivers from Mercedes customer teams Force India and Williams used the same power unit for the first six races, but all four have now switched to a new ICE, turbo, MGU-H, MGU-K and control electronics from the start of the Montreal weekend.

Works Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas had already changed to the latest specfication, with Hamilton racing it in Spain and Bottas in Monaco, after a problem forced the Finn to revert to his original unit in Barcelona.

“I think it’s more to do with reliability than outright performance,” said Force India COO Otmar Szafnauer.

“The outright performance stuff comes from the fact that you can run it for longer in a more performant mode. But if you’re asking about laptime, it’s nearly the same.

“We can run some of the more performance modes in the race longer, so the race time is shorter – but over a lap, it’s the same.”

In addition to the revised spec, both teams will be able to utilise the fact that they now have three engines with which to run 14 races, assuming there are no failures.

This means that somewhere along the line Force India and Williams should be able to take advantage of the fact that not all their power units will have to run five full race weekends, potentially allowing the engines to be pushed harder for longer.