F1: Hamilton not bothered about engine upgrade

Lewis Hamilton says he is "not bothered" about missing out on a Mercedes Formula 1 engine upgrade if one is made available later in the season.

The reigning world champion took three new engines over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend to give him a pool of fresh units for the rest of the season, resulting in 60 places of grid penalties that put him on the back row of the grid.

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While Hamilton minimized the damage at Spa by coming through to finish third, if Mercedes introduces another new engine spec later in the season he would have to take more penalties to upgrade to that version.

"I'm happy with the [engine] phase that we have, I'm happy to run that for the rest of the year," said Hamilton ahead of this weekend's Italian GP. "If there is an upgrade, I'm not bothered to take it – I can win with the ones I have.

"Usually upgrades are reliability mostly. It's often small steps. I'm not concerned."

While Mercedes is believed to be planning another engine upgrade before the end of the year, its motorsport boss Toto Wolff said at Spa it is yet to see a noticeable difference in performance in anything it is testing back at the factory.

Hamilton also pointed out that his batch of fresh engines is no guarantee of good reliability for the rest of the campaign.

"You are hoping with fresh engines you are in a good position, but all sorts of things can happen," he said. "I had fresh engines earlier on in the season, so I'm not in a different position. Now I can race, I can focus on getting my head down and getting back to the way I was driving before.

"The penalties are done so the free weekend for the opponent [Nico Rosberg] is past. Spa was an important race, I got what I needed from it and more.

"Hopefully from now, I get to fight and race."

Originally on Autosport.com