Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is wary of both the new start procedures at the Belgian Grand Prix and the potential for contact between his drivers in the opening laps of the race.
Spa-Francorchamps sees the introduction of new regulations which prevent drivers from changing clutch settings after leaving the garage and rules out certain communications between engineer and driver (see below for more details). The aim is to put the launch of the car back in the drivers' hands rather than the engineers' and it could see the quality of getaways vary up and down the grid.
"Yes there are concerns when there is a new bit of kit, new technology or new rules kicking in," Wolff said. "There is more responsibility on the driver, more to learn and to understand, to digest and to execute in the car. I guess the FIA's target was, together with commercial right holders, to add a little more unpredictability and I have no doubt we're going to see some variability in race starts. So there is always this thinking what is going to happen."
Last year at Spa-Francorchamps, Nico Rosberg made a poor start from pole position, allowing Lewis Hamilton to take the lead into the first corner. On the second lap Rosberg attempted to pass Hamilton but made contact with his team-mate and gave Hamilton a puncture. Wolff is not expecting a repeat but admitted the opening sequence of corners naturally lend themselves to close racing.
"I guess that we've all learned our lesson [from last year]," Wolff said. "I don't see that happening. They have shown us some great racing all through the year, very close racing.
"I have no doubt that tomorrow once we get the start right, we will have some grey hair through Turn 1, Eau Rouge and the straight but hopefully only very exciting for all of us, close racing but nothing more."
Hamilton added: "It's really difficult to know what is going to happen tomorrow but you're right, it's not a very good place to start pole. It's always been difficult because when you're up ahead you create a great tow for whoever is behind. In a perfect scenario, I'd get a mega start with a great exit out of Turn 1 and I'd be enough car lengths ahead but that's never the case generally.
"I'm not quite sure, I'm just going to do everything I can to get a good start. I've just got to try and get in the lead and stay in the lead if possible. Otherwise, it'd be a tough race afterwards if you're behind because its very difficult to overtake here, but not impossible."
Ferrari's James Allison explains the new start procedure
"The overall procedure is fairly long and tedious so I will try and shortcut it a bit. When you go with the car from stop to going, there's a certain amount of grip available on the track. The tyre has a certain amount of grip, the track has a certain amount of grip, you want to go as close to that available grip as possible but not over it and you don't want to go under it otherwise you're not making as much performance as there is available.
"Now if you were super duper skilful you might have fingers that could judge exactly where that grip is but it all happens very very fast so a perfect start is one where you can just let go of the clutch, let go of it and it closes to the perfect point where it delivers exactly the right amount of torque, such that the tyre doesn't light up and spin, but neither does it give less torque to the road than the road is capable of taking. So our job, during the weekend, is to try to judge exactly how much grip is available and to adjust our clutches so that when the driver says go, the clutch closes the perfect amount to deliver the perfect amount of torque to the road and then off it goes. And that's something that happens without the driver adjusting stuff, he doesn't fiddle around with his fingers.
"The way that we used to do that in the past was there's two clutch paddles, one which he holds all the way in, keeping the clutch fully open and the other which he holds in a partially closed and open position. We then, as engineers, adjust the clutch so that this partially closed and open position is at exactly the right point to get this magic start. And then when the light goes green, he lets go of the first clutch and the clutch closes to the point that is being held by the second paddle. Off the car goes.
"All that's changed is that now we're not allowed to advise or make any adjustments to that biting point between when the car's on the grid preparing for the start of the race and when the driver actually does it so the parade lap start and the real start is done all by the driver and if he thinks it's not closed enough or too open, he has to make his own judgement about that and make the calls. We can be sitting in the garage going 'no, don't do that' but we don't have any power to stop him."