Hamilton predicts pain for Mercedes in Montreal

Lewis Hamilton expects Mercedes will be unable to compete for victory at the Canadian Grand Prix after having to shelve an upgraded power unit. Both Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, as well as Mercedes' customer teams, will run the engines they have used across the first six races of 2018.

A fresh power unit has been held back due to a "quality issue", meaning the Silver Arrows will race power units that already have covered 1,795 kilometres (1115 miles).

The hefty straights at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve mean a strong power unit is a necessity, with Ferrari and Red Bull set to enjoy the boosted performance of fresh engines.

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Hamilton has six Canadian GP wins to his name, just one away from Michael Schumacher's record haul, and has won in Montreal three years on the spin. He does not expect to add to that tally this week, however.

"This is a power circuit, so it was our target and it definitely would have been helpful," Hamilton said of his hopes for a fresh power unit.

"But the guys worked as hard as they could and had to take a sensible decision to not bring it here, which is definitely unfortunate, but we'll try and make do without. But it will mean our performance is probably not the greatest.

"If the others are bringing upgrades and have got fresh engines, particularly how close we are, we won't be in position to fight for the victory.

"This is a power circuit and there is power lost over an engine [life].

"All I'm hoping for is reliability. If I'm on the seventh race with a difficult circuit on engines, I want to see it through. That's my main concern.

"Naturally I'm still here to win but, as I said, if they've got upgrades on their engines, which are going to be a tenth to two tenths, Ferrari are particularly very strong on the straights, it'll be interesting to see if we are able to match them or not. But we'll give it everything, that's for sure.

"It will be the seventh race on the engine. The goal is to make the engine stay the same the whole way through but naturally it's degraded and you lose brake horsepower over races.

"It definitely will have lost performance and so at a power circuit it will probably be magnified."