2017 Formula 1 cars will redefine corners, McLaren's Goss predicts

This year's F1 cars will feature wider tyres and significantly enhanced aerodynamics, with the aim of reducing lap times by several seconds.

Most of this lap time gain will be generated by traveling quicker through corners, and in an article explaining the 2017 rule changes posted on McLaren's website, Goss said this would lead to certain cornering challenges disappearing.

"The aim was to make the cars look more aggressive; to make them faster, so that F1 was very much at the pinnacle of motorsport in terms of outright speed, and to make them more difficult to drive," Goss said.

"By that we don't mean they're more of a handful for the drivers, but that they're more physically demanding, so they get out of the car having had to work hard - like they did in years past.

"The drivers say these new cars will be more challenging to drive, and they'll have to work harder and concentrate more to get the best from them.

"One knock-on from that is that we'll no longer classify some corners as 'corners'.

"Engineers define a corner as a point on the track where the driver has to lift and essentially drive and handle the car through it.

"If he's going round a bend and his foot is flat to the floor on the accelerator, we class that as a straight.

"As the new cars will be going faster, some of 2016's 'corners' will be classified as 'straights'.

"But because they'll be going through them faster, they'll be subjected to more g-forces - and that's still tiring on the body."

'MEANER' F1 SHOULD SHAKE THINGS UP

Goss also thinks the new regulations will produce cars that look "mean" and "cool".

"The 2017 cars will look pretty similar to the layman, but the aero guys have been battling to correct flow-structures at different rideheights for months and months now," he said.

"We've had to rethink lots of different areas on the car, because they're behaving differently to how they did before."

"These 2017 cars are lower and squatter; they just look meaner.

"The lower rear wing, big fat tyres and big diffuser look cool - they look mean."

Toro Rosso technical director James Key has called F1's 2017 regulation changes the biggest in decades, and Goss reckons such substantial changes are likely to shake up the competitive order.

"We've had bigger changes in the past - the change between 1982 and '83 from ground-effect to flat floors, for example, which had a massive impact on performance - but this season's changes rank as some of the most significant we've ever had," Goss added.

"That's likely to change the competition order - because it's such a big disturbance - but then what normally happens is the best and most well-equipped teams tend to rise to the top again."