Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton believes the effect of Mercedes’ decision to postpone its engine upgrade will be “magnified” due to the power-hungry nature of the Canadian Grand Prix.
Mercedes confirmed at the start of the week that its PU2 update would be introduced as scheduled for this weekend’s event at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Customer teams Force India and Williams were also set to receive the updated specification for the event, with the circuit characteristics favouring engine prowess.
However, Mercedes announced on Wednesday that a “quality” issue meant it had been forced to postpone the introduction of PU2 until the next event in France.
It means Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas will be remaining with the PU1 specification that has already completed the opening six Grands Prix of the campaign.
Primary rivals Ferrari, along with Renault and Honda, are set to introduce an upgraded engine package for this weekend’s event, with Hamilton expecting Mercedes’ delay to hurt its chances.
“This is a power circuit so it definitely was our target [to bring the update],” Hamilton told TV reporters on Thursday.
“The guys worked as hard as they could but had to make the sensible decision not to bring it here which is unfortunate, but we’ll try and make do without.
“But it will mean our performance is not…probably not the quickest.
“It’ll be the seventh race on the engine and the goal is to make the engines stay the same the whole way through [the cycle], but naturally it degrades: you lose horsepower over races.
“If we’re 7000km or 8000km or whatever [into the engine’s life] it definitely will [have] lost performance and at a power circuit [that] will probably be magnified.”
Team-mate Bottas added: "For sure the new one would have been a little bit better – but it's not like our old engine, the phase one, is a bad engine. It’s a good one and it’s still healthy. It’s been reliable, so no concerns on that."
Hamilton has taken six victories at the Canadian Grand Prix during his Formula 1 career, including across the past three seasons.
Hamilton heads into the weekend with a 14-point advantage over Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel in the standings.
