SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium — Valtteri Bottas will find out on Friday morning if he will start from the back of the grid at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, as Mercedes makes a final call on whether to run its final engine upgrade of the season on both cars at Spa-Francorchamps.
Title rival Ferrari is also expected to bring an upgraded power unit to Spa after running its latest specification in the cars of its two customer teams Haas and Sauber at the last race in Hungary. Ferrari has gained the upper hand in terms of power output at recent races, but Mercedes is aiming to level the playing field with its third and final engine upgrade.
The team will confirm whether it has fitted the new upgrade ahead of first practice on Friday, and Hamilton believes the performance boost could have a big impact on the outcome of the next two races.
“Naturally, every upgrade that we have and every opportunity we have for an upgrade is important,” he said. “These next two weekends are the two big power circuits, and you’ve seen how big an impact the power can make with Ferrari taking a big step around Austria, and that wasn’t even a new power unit.
“This weekend I think they have got a new power unit, we have got a new power unit, so it will be interesting to see how they fare against each other. Naturally, I’ve got a lot of confidence in ours.”
While Hamilton is still within his quota of three power units for the season, a new engine, turbocharger and MGU-H will push Bottas over his quota and onto his fourth of each component. Bottas took his third engine in Silverstone after concerns his previous engine had been damaged following his retirement from the Austrian Grand Prix.
He said the final call on whether to take a new power unit for Spa — and take the associated penalty — would be made on Friday, but said the ease of overtaking at the Belgian circuit means he could still score a good result.
“I think tomorrow morning we are going to know 100 percent with which engine we are going to start and then we will see what the situation is. If I do need to take a new engine there is going to be a penalty, but that’s something we will find out tomorrow, but in any case, Spa is one of the best places to take it because you can overtake.”