Mercedes technical boss Paddy Lowe believes Formula One teams will one day operate without wind tunnels, but does not think it will be any time soon.

Formula One's Strategy Group recently proposed a future ban on wind tunnels, but it is not yet clear over what sort of time frame the technology will be phased out. Some teams have more money invested in wind tunnel facilities than others and opinions in the paddock over a ban tend to vary accordingly.

Mercedes invested in an upgrade of its wind tunnel in 2012, which has been used to aid the design of the dominant W05 and W06 cars of the last two seasons. Lowe said F1 cars of the future will rely more and more on CFD, but does not think the wind tunnel will be made obsolete any time soon.

"I think there will come a day when we will stop using wind tunnels all on our own, because new technology becomes superior, but I think the timing of that is a long way off -- many, many years," he said. "At the moment CFD is a great compliment to the wind tunnel process, but only when it has the ability to be calibrated against the tunnel on a regular basis.

"I think there is also an overriding safety demand [for keeping wind tunnels]. We've seen other formulae in which cars become unstable at high speed. We must make sure the cars are fully validated from that point of view and the wind tunnel, at the moment, is the only reliable way of doing that."

Red Bull's Christian Horner, who has been one of the main advocates of a wind tunnel ban, said the Strategy Group's recent conversations are aimed at weaning F1 off wind tunnels ahead of a ban at some point in the future.

"I guess what you've got to remember is that they're both simulation tools ultimately and a wind tunnel to feed and to run is extremely expensive compared to, in comparison, CFD. I think the strategic discussion to have is at some point CFD will become strong enough and powerful enough to replace the wind tunnel, but at what point is that?

"I think the Strategy Group are having responsible discussions about what the time frame, if that scenario happens, is. Because we all have big investments. Every team in the pitlane has multi-million pound investments in this technology and to unravel yourself from that isn't an overnight scenario. So, I think we all need to get on the same page about it, take away competitive advantage or differences. And if we do that by looking far enough down the road, then a road map hopefully can be achieved."