Red Bull designer Adrian Newey says the smaller details of the 2017 technical regulations will hold the key to unlocking performance next season.
A new set of aerodynamic regulations will be introduced next year aimed at making the cars faster and better looking, while also offering teams an opportunity to steal a march on the opposition. Newey has been working closely with the Red Bull design office on next year's car and says the challenges created by some of the details in the regulations present the best opportunities to make performance gains.
"It's a very different set of aerodynamic regulations and it poses a lot of challenges," he said. "When you first look at them, the changes appear relatively small. Although the tyres are wider, the inside shoulder is in roughly the same place; some of the box regulations are swept to give the illusion of speed -- but once you get into the details then it's actually hugely different and throwing up a lot of challenges, and with challenges come opportunities."
Newey expects the new regulations to open up competition, but said it was too early to tell if a single team will come out on top as Mercedes did after 2014.
"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 a certain circuits and not so good at others, it is too early to tell."
Asked if the 2017 regulations offered him new motivation, Newey said: "The regulations we have been working to up until the end of this year obviously came in for the 2009 season, and while there have been some relatively small changes over the years, they have been exactly that.
"The cars have all evolved quite heavily over several seasons to one set of regulations, to the point of course that now when you look at the cars they all look pretty similar to each other. I guess it's a form of flattery to us that if you look at the original 2009 car, there has been a convergence towards that car, but that of course is all history now."