Having remained tight-lipped about the specification of their engines since arriving in France, Mercedes finally broke their silence after Friday practice, revealing Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas plus customer teams Williams and Force India are running their updated engine…

A last-minute ‘quality’ concern made Mercedes hold off on bringing their upgrade to the last race in Canada – unlike rivals Ferrari, Renault and Honda. They had hoped to bring it to Paul Ricard, but chose not to divulge their plans during Thursday’s media day.

But after Hamilton dominated both Friday practice sessions, with the reigning world champion a staggering 0.704s quicker than Daniel Ricciardo in FP2, Mercedes opened up about their plans.

"The new engine feels clean and fresh, but we won't really know its full potential until tomorrow when everyone gets to turn their engines up," said Hamilton. "I'm grateful for the hard work that everyone put into it back in Brixworth. They've been pushing so hard to get this engine and do it in the right way, so a big thank you to everyone back at the factory - I hope that we can do something great with it!"