Red Bull design guru Adrian Newey is predicting a mixed up grid this year as he admits the new regulations are a guessing game for everyone.
With an emphasis on aerodynamics in 2017, many are predicting Red Bull to steal a march on their rivals as they've traditionally done well with major regulation changes which focus on the chassis.
Newey however says it's impossible to predict who will and won't do well as they have to commit to the development path they believe to be correct.
"Whenever there is a regulation change, some teams read the regulations better than others," he told Sky Sports F1. "Typically the big teams, who have the bigger resource, read them better, but when we had the last big regulation change in 2009 that wasn't the case, it was Brawn and ourselves who read them correctly, and the grandees, then Ferrari and McLaren, who struggled a bit.
"Whenever you have regulation change, you have lots of ideas which you have to channel down to a direction and a philosophy for the car. Although we are one of the bigger teams we don't have the resources to look at them all avenues simultaneously.
"It's [a case of] 'this is the avenue we believe is the correct one' and we hope we are right. There is always the chance that there is an avenue or direction which someone else has taken which is superior."
As has often been the case with the introduction of new rules, Newey says it's very likely there will be big performance gaps between teams, with one or two emerging as the dominant force: "It will almost certainly mean the grid will be a bit more spread out to start with," he added.
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