Pirelli is keen to have the 2017 pre-season take place in Bahrain or Abu Dhabi so it can test its new tyres in conditions representative of the opening races of the year.
Pirelli's wider compounds are part of the radical regulation changes next year, which are aiming to produce faster cars over one lap. Those changes will make pre-season even more important as teams and F1's tyre manufacturer try to understand the new cars as best they can before the season opener.
Though pre-season has taken place solely in Spain in the last two seasons in order to cut costs for teams Pirelli would like to see a return to the desert to give it the best chance of understanding the 2017 compound.
Speaking about its hopes for pre-season next year, Pirelli's Paul Hembery told the F1 website: "We would prefer to go somewhere like Bahrain or Abu Dhabi. The temperatures will be representative and we know the tracks very well. We definitely would want to go to representative tracks."
With the exact look of the new cars still unknown as teams try to find an edge over their rivals in development, Hembery admits the final version of the 2017 compound might not be available until the season opener.
"If we have any surprises -- if the cars then are very different to what we had envisioned -- then we will have to react to that. Probably not for the first race, but at least when we have some really good winter testing we should know in advance how it is likely going to be -- what changes are needed."
Only Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari will get to sample the 2017 compounds this year as part of Pirelli's development programme. Williams' Pat Symonds has suggested that offers those three teams a big advantage but Hembery does not think that is the case.
"I don't believe there will be any disadvantage [to the others]. All the teams that are not testing have full data access to the results.
"And to make it clear, the three teams that are testing will not even know what they are testing, so we will end up mixing and matching the solutions so that even if they see something that is working well, it might not be the thing that they will get in 2017. The teams will just be testing blind - and as I just said, the data will be available to all the teams."