Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Mercedes spends full token allocation on Monza upgrade

Mercedes has spent its full token allocation on a power unit upgrade at the Italian Grand Prix which is designed to help its 2016 engine.

Having been dominant throughout 2015 so far, Mercedes had yet to use any of the seven tokens it had available before this weekend. However, with the championship leaders introducing a third power unit for both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Monza, Mercedes has confirmed it has also upgraded its engine.

"Our drivers will take their third Power Units of the season and it will be a new spec using our remaining 7 development tokens," Mercedes said. "We’ve tactically pulled forward planned 2016 development to learn about a new spec of Petronas fuel out on track!

"The goal? A dash of R&D exploring a new development direction to unlock more performance for the whole Mercedes family in 2016!"

Mercedes is the first power unit manufacturer to use its full token allocation this year, with Honda having used five of its nine tokens, Ferrari three of its ten tokens and Renault yet to use any of the 12 tokens it has available for development.

Renault plans on following Mercedes' lead in spending all of its allocation on an upgrade around the Russian Grand Prix.

Click here for Chris Medland's Italian Grand Prix preview and bold podium prediction.

2016 F1 driver line-ups so far

F1 drivers' girlfriends gallery

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.