No confirmed engine upgrade, claims Hamilton

With the Formula One season seven races in out of the 21 scheduled Grand Prixs, most of the teams have moved on to their second engine of the campaign, but Lewis Hamilton has admitted he does not know if he will receive a new power unit before the French GP.

Even though Valtteri Bottas finished second in the Canadian GP, he never emerged as a real competitor to Sebastian Vettel, who cruised to the win from pole to flag, while Hamilton ended up in fifth.

Mercedes' rivals opted to make the change to their second power unit before Montreal, while the Silver Arrows could not because of alleged "technical issues".

They have been tipped to finally make the improvement before France, but Hamilton has admitted doesn't know if it will be ready.

“At the moment, I don’t know,” he said of Mercedes' engine plans.

“I think I might have one of my new engines out of my three [allowed per season under the new-for-2018 regulations], which is good enough.

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“The engine that we’ve used for the first seven races has been a great engine. A fresher, newer version of that is going to be great and have more power than the one I raced in the last race, obviously, and so I am not concerned.

“The next couple of days we might have a better understanding of where we stand with that. I trust in whatever decision the guys make. It will be for the right reasons.

“We’ve done the seven races with great performance up until now so, even if we are to take the older spec, I’m not worried about it.”

Hamilton goes into the race one point behind Vettel in the championship standings, while Mercedes remain top of the constructor rankings.