‘Pretty much all new engine for Mercedes’

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Mercedes will race an “all new” engine in next year’s championship, revealed engine boss Andy Cowell.

Although Mercedes’ power unit has been undoubtedly the best on the grid since 2014, there is always room for improvement.

And Mercedes are hoping to achieve just that with their 2018 engine.

“We’ve got ideas to improve the power,” Cowell told Autosport.

“We’ve got ideas to reduce the friction in pretty much every area of the power unit.”

Asked how much of the engine was new, he replied: “Pretty much all new.

“Every time you do an engine [update], you’ve always learned [something new].

“A lot of it is small, marginal gains on well-trodden areas [but] some of it is big, fundamental bits of learning, combustion progress, friction reduction, new materials that unlock areas where we’ve been struggling with reliability.

“And sometimes it’s just a surprise.

“There’s still gains to be had [with this formula]. It’s a plethora of marginal gains, five millisecond gains.”