Sauber to take upgraded Ferrari engine in Spain

Sauber will start using Ferrari’s upgraded power unit during next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, Felipe Nasr has confirmed in his latest exclusive column for F1i.

The Scuderia spent three engine development tokens ahead of the last championship round in Russia. While regulations state that manufacturers must make any evolution available to their customer teams at the same time, neither Sauber nor Haas ran the latest spec in Sochi.

Toro Rosso is also using a Ferrari power unit, albeit a late 2015 version, which means the Faenza outfit can not develop it under the current rules.

After Sauber’s challenging start to its 2016 campaign amid financial difficulties and lack of upgrades to the C35, Nasr is confident the revised engine will help improve the Swiss team’s prospects as F1 returns to Europe.

“In Barcelona we will have the added benefit of running Ferrari's latest engine specification,” Nasr wrote in his latest F1i column. “Added to all the data we have from Sochi, this makes me feel confident of a very good weekend in Spain.”

According to Motorsport.com, Haas, which was pondering using the upgrade earlier this week, will also take the new Ferrari engine.

Sauber announced on Tuesday that it would skip the post-Spanish Grand Prix test held on May 17/18.

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