Race starts to be even harder in 2017 - report

Drivers will find it even harder to make the perfect race start in 2017.

That is the claim of Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, revealing a little known detail of the new regulations for next season.

The development follows Mercedes and Force India having tested new steering wheels in practice towards the end of last season, featuring a long, single clutch lever at the rear.

F1 has already clamped down on the automation of F1 race getaways, but the German report said the rule tweaks for 2017 will make getting a good start even harder.

From 2017, only one clutch lever will be allowed on the steering wheel, even though this year they had the same function. And teams will no longer be able to make markings on the steering wheel to indicate the ideal ’bite point’.

"It is the engineers’ view that (from 2017) it will be much more common that revs will drop too much or the wheels will spin too much," said correspondent Michael Schmidt.