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Wolff hoping for 'spectacular' racing in 2017

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff has said that he has high hopes for spectacular racing in the 2017 Formula One world championship as a result of new tyre and downforce regulations that are being introduced in time for the season opener at Melbourne next month.

Preparing for the new rules has been especially challenging for Pirelli. Both slick and wet tyres will see an increase of 25 per cent in width, moving from 245mm to 305 mm at the front and from 325mm to 405mm in the rear. The size of the rims will remain 13 inches.

The new regulations should decrease average lap times by around three seconds while increasing downforce by 20 per cent, putting more stress and strain on the tyre compounds.

"I'd really like to thank Pirelli for the job they've done over the last months," said Wolff in a video message to the Italian manufacturer.

"It's certainly a difficult task to develop a tyre for regulations that we haven't seen, that we don't know how they're going to come together.

"The new car testing so far has been successful, and the results we have seen give us great hope that we will see some spectacular racing [this] year," he added."

The FIA tasked Pirelli with making tyres with less degradation and greater resistance to overheating for the latest generation of racing cars

"It's about finding the best compromise between lots more grip with the wider tyres, but at the same time have some degradation in the tyre - and that's a difficult task to achieve," admitted Wolff.

"As it looks now, all the things are coming together and we expect a very interesting and challenging 2017 Formula One season."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.