BARCELONA, Spain -- Kevin Magnussen believes starts will be a "much bigger challenge" for drivers in 2017 due to new rules set to be enforced for the upcoming season.
In recent years F1 has taken steps to tweak the starting procedure and push the emphasis back towards the driver by taking influence away from engineers. Ahead of the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix the FIA enforced Article 20.1 of the Sporting Regulations stating "a driver must drive the car alone and aided", limiting pre-race radio communications and dictating that the clutch point could not be changed after leaving the pit lane before a grand prix.
In 2016, the rules were changed again to enforce the use of a single clutch paddle. This year the rules have been tightened further to prevent engineers from mapping clutch settings which would effectively launch the car once a certain point had been found on the paddle, meaning the driver controls everything about the launch from inside the cockpit.
Haas driver Magnussen says that rule change will place all the onus on the drivers when the lights go out.
"You just had to release [the paddle] between 10 percent and 80 percent," the Dane said, explaining how clutch releases worked last year. "Somewhere in there was a flat map that would be set to the grip, the tyres and fuel loads.
"So the start was 100 percent up to the engineers before. But now it is completely down to us.
"Last year you could have a bad start but that was down to the engineer not having the torque right in the clutch and not calculating the grip and whatever right. You could react quickly to the lights last year as well, that made a difference, but except for that there's not much that was down to you really.
"Now it's all down to you to find the right amount of clutch torque for the grip so you are on the limit of the wheelspin from the beginning as early as possible. That will be the ideal start, but it's very difficult."
Magnussen thinks the difference will be significant this year and should have an exciting consequence for grand prix starts.
When asked how much harder it would be in 2017, he replied: "A lot. Last year wasn't hard ... The challenge is getting the right amount of clutch torque so you are on the limit of the wheelspin, that's the challenge."
He was then asked if it would be rare to see as many clean getaways in 2017 as we have seen in recent seasons, to which he said: "Definitely ... I think we'll see some guys getting a massive one and gaining loads of positions and other ones losing out massively. I think there will be some spread."