F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Ferrari spends final power unit tokens on Monza update

Ferrari has become the first team to spend all of its power unit development tokens on an update at the Italian Grand Prix.

The Scuderia had spent 23 of its power unit tokens before the start of the season, and upgrades introduced in Russia and Canada each cost three tokens, leaving the team with just three remaining. Those final tokens have now been spent on a Monza upgrade, meaning Ferrari has none remaining for power unit development this season.

While certain areas can't be improved for performance purposes as a result, Ferrari can still update the power unit for reliability reasons.

Ferrari's upgrade follows major developments for Honda (seven tokens) and Mercedes (five tokens) at Spa-Francorchamps. Honda and Mercedes now have three and six tokens left for use this season respectively.

  • Honda plans to spend all tokens on upgrades in 2016

Renault introduced a B-spec power unit at the Monaco Grand Prix which delivered a step forward in performance, which only cost the French manufacturer three tokens at the time. Renault still has 21 tokens available to use for development as a result, with managing director Cyril Abiteboul previously stating it doesn't necessarily have to spend tokens to improve performance.

Ferrari: 0 (32 used)
Honda: 3 (29 used)
Mercedes: 6 (26 used)
Renault: 21 (11 used)

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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.

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