Mercedes spends five tokens on power unit upgrade

© XPB 

Mercedes has spent five tokens on a power unit upgrade, which both drivers have received at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The FIA Technical Delegate's Report shows both Mercedes drivers to have taken a new internal combustion engine (ICE), MGU-H, MGU-K and turbocharger. Mercedes has now confirmed the new engines are due to an upgrade which cost five tokens in total.

With the Mercedes customer teams having only taken new engines in Germany, none of them have the full upgrade but Mercedes says the elements outside of the sealed perimeter have already been fitted to the customers.

The upgrade coincides with Lewis Hamilton's power unit penalties, with the championship leader taking a complete new power unit ahead of FP1 and another ahead of FP2, leaving him with a 30-place grid penalty at present.

With Hamilton all but certain to start on the back row for Sunday's race, Mercedes is likely to take an extra power unit - and associated penalty - for the triple world champion ahead of the final practice session.

Following the most recent spend, Mercedes has six development tokens remaining. The team is provisionally planning to introduce its final new power unit at Suzuka, but says there are no concrete plans to further upgrade the engine at the same time.

Honda has also introduced a power unit upgrade this weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, spending seven development tokens on its latest version.

REPORT: Verstappen leads Ricciardo in Red Bull one-two in FP2

Silbermann says ... Spa too hot

Romain Grosjean column: More motivated than ever

Chris Medland's 2016 Belgian Grand Prix preview

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