Hamilton: The new engine feels clean and fresh

A Spec-2 of the current power unit was expected to break cover in Canada, but Mercedes delayed the update due to quality issues. Throughout the first day of practice, no one but Mercedes knew what version PUs were bolted to the back of their cars.

At the end of the day Mercedes let the cat out the box confirming their team and their customers had in fact run the updated PUs on the day with a Tweet on Friday evening:

Lewis Hamilton immediately made good use of his new and updated power unit by topping both free practice sessions on the opening day. His time in FP2 was seven tenths up on the next best.

The reigning F1 World Champion immediately felt the difference and reported at the end of the day, "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."

"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!" added Hamilton.

Valtteri Bottas, had a troubled afternoon session, sidelined for most of it with a water leak, nevertheless, he echoed his teammate's sentiments, "We were running the new spec engine today which felt fresh and good, but we didn't run it yet in full power, so there's more to discover."

While the Silver Arrows boys relished their 'new toys' their fellow Mercedes powered clients were way off the pace, Williams and Force India fighting among themselves for the slowest team on the grid.

Esteban Ocon was fastest of the quartet, his time only good enough for 16th on the timesheets, but a massive 3.1 seconds slower than Hamilton's Benchmark time.

Next up were the Williams duo of Lance Stroll (17th) and Sergey Sirotkin (18th), with Sergio Perez slowest of all in 19th. Sauber's Marcus Ericsson did not run in the session due to an accident in FP1.