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What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 Austrian GP

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What's behind Red Bull's "hit-and-miss" issues during first test of crucial F1 upgrade?

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The difficult questions Mercedes has to answer

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Why McLaren hasn't run its "McMacarena" wing in Austria

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F1 Austrian GP: Antonelli completes perfect Friday by topping FP2

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FIA bans Ferrari style exhaust wings in F1 2027

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Adrian Newey concerned about F1's 2017 rule changes

Red Bull's Adrian Newey believes a compromised set of 2017 regulations would be a "wasted opportunity" for Formula 1

A series of meetings tomorrow will determine the fate of a revamp first flagged last May to increase the speed of F1 cars by five or six seconds next year.

Numerous alterations have been made to the original proposals, and if an agreement cannot be met by the Strategy Group and then F1 Commission in Geneva on Tuesday, any change could be pushed back to 2018.

"Hopefully there will be an agreement tomorrow," Newey said.

"Obviously the '17 regulations are divided into all sorts of constituencies - the change in aerodynamic regulations and tyre size, there is the power unit regulations and so forth.

"It's quite a complicated and intertwined relationship.

"The biggest danger is that the tendency for teams to vote for self interest, rather than necessarily what's best for the sport."

Newey fears that in the interest of ensuring changes are made in 2017, that the outcome will merely be a compromise.

"That is a legitimate concern," he added.

"The '17 chassis regulations were first proposed some time ago with teams being allowed a window in which they could do initial CFD studies and feed back to the FIA on the results of those studies.

"Still, they feel slightly immature.

"If you go back to the current regulations, and whilst they can easily be criticised, one thing you could say about them is that they did have a decent amount of research behind them.

"These have had work in a different way, where the teams have effectively done some of the work, through that CFD amnesty period.

"The problem is, that period stopped and then there has been all sorts of attempts at diluting and changing those regulations in a period from that amnesty period to now.

"So no further work has been done on it, which is, I think, a wasted opportunity. But that's where we are."

AGREEMENT NO CERTAINTY

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier is not convinced that a clear way forward will emerge tomorrow.

"I don't know if we will get to an agreement," Boullier said.

"But if we don't, we have some other issues because the deadline for the decision for next year's regulation, switching from majority to unanimity, is March 1.

"We have been talking about this for a long time, so if we don't agree for me that's a failure," he said.

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