Mercedes spent the remainder of its seven development tokens on its power unit ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, debuting its upgraded engine in the back of race winner Lewis Hamilton’s car.
The Briton won the race by 25 seconds to Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, leading Red Bull team principal Christian Horner to describe the new engine as “frightening”.
But Mercedes’ customers haven’t yet been told when, or even if, they’ll receive the new unit before the end of the season.
Williams performance chief Rob Smedley is keen to see it in their cars, though if it does happen, it’s unlikely to be fitted until later in the season as both Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas took on new engines at Monza and have just one penalty free change remaining.
“Obviously the works Mercedes team has had a power unit upgrade which we would dearly love in the back of our car as well,” he said.
“That seems to have been a good step – Lewis was certainly going very quickly.
“We’ve got a new power unit to take before the end of the year,” he added. “Whether that is the new specification I can’t really tell you, but it’s under discussion at the minute.
“If we get it before the end of the year, that would be a great advantage to us.”
Massa added: “It looks a really big improvement. I have no idea when we’re going to have it. I hope we will have it.”
Williams sit a comfortable third in the championship, 82 points adrift of Ferrari but 75 ahead of Red Bull.
