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Adrian Newey expects that the 2017 regulations will spread the field out rather than close it up.
The last major rules shake up in 2009 brought about a major reshuffle of the competitive order, which saw Newey's Red Bull Racing rise from a solid midfield runner, to a championship contender. It was also the last time every team finished the year with points on the board.
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But the new-for-2017 rules will see bigger gaps between the front and the back of the grid according to Newey.
"I think it’s inevitable that the lap time spread across the grid will be bigger than it has been this year because some people will come up with better aerodynamic solutions to this set of regulations than others, but whether that simply means one team dominates or whether some teams will be good at certain circuits and not so good at others, it is too early to tell," said Newey.
Despite being expected to drop lap times significantly, one fear of the new regulations is that the sweeping aerodynamic changes will harm overtaking, but Newey isn't completely sure that will be the case.
"The honest truth is I don’t know," he said. "It’s not something we spend any time worrying about, we just worry about making the car as quick as possible once you’ve got a set of regulations."
"We’ve had our head down so much trying to get on and find solutions that I haven’t really kept a detailed check of where we are compared to that 4-5 second [lap time improvement] expectation."
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