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F1 urged to speed up finalising 2017 regulations

Formula 1 has been urged to speed up the process of finalising its new technical rules package for 2017 to give teams enough time to prepare for the changes

Following a meeting of the Strategy Group in May the FIA announced a raft of measures designed to improve the show, and the cars, from 2017.

The plan is to increase the speed of F1 machinery by five-to-six seconds per lap, for them to look more aggressive with bigger rear tyres and wider front and rear wings, and allow for higher-revving engines.

At present the teams are still waiting for full details, and the rules need to be put in place by March of next year at the latest, beyond which they cannot be altered.

Force India chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer and technical director Andrew Green are both anxious to know the direction in which they need to head so plans can be put in place.

Explaining his worries, Szafnauer told AUTOSPORT: "For me, the big concern is the rules are still not refined, and the longer you leave it then the worse off we are going to be.

"We're not a massive team, so we don't have the resources like some of the other teams to do two things at once.

"We develop by series, not in parallel, so we have to get moving on the regulations, especially if it's going to be a big upheaval, a big change, which it sounds like it's going to be."

Green has confirmed a meeting of F1's technical chiefs is due to take place on the Tuesday ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix in which he is hoping matters will be addressed.

"Until we have that meeting and a get a feeling from the FIA as to which way they want to go and how they want to do it, it's quite open, a blank piece of paper as far as I can tell," Green told AUTOSPORT.

"It's a real concern because we are supposed to have these regulations tied up by March 2016 when they are published.

"We spend months detailing single-line items in the technical regs to ensure they are fully buttoned up, no loopholes.

"So to take a whole set of regulations and think we can re-write them in the time period we've got without them being full of holes is going to be a real challenge, and I don't really know how we're going to do it by March."

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