Mercedes spends two tokens on fuel system

Mercedes has spent two power unit development tokens on its fuel system ahead of the Russian Grand Prix.

The development on the fuel system comes at the same time as Mercedes introducing a new Petronas engine oil in Sochi, as the team looks to negate the threat from Ferrari, which has also spent tokens upgrading its power unit this weekend.

Mercedes confirmed the upgrade "is for components outside the sealed perimeter", which means it doesn't count as using a new power unit. The fuel system improvements are available to both the works team and all customers using the Mercedes power unit.

Teams had a maximum of 32 tokens to spend in 2016, with Mercedes having spent 19 before the pre-season homologation deadline. The spend of two tokens for the latest developments means Mercedes has 11 token left to use this season.

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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.