Formula 1 race director Charlie Whiting has admitted that there are added concerns about the start procedure at this weekend's Australian Grand Prix.

Several teams have struggled to complete practice starts during pre-season testing and Whiting concedes that there is a high potential for stalled cars at the start of the forthcoming race.

"I've been told that some cars haven't actually done a practice start yet," Whiting said ahead of this weekend's curtain raiser.

"I'm sure they'll be doing lots here at the pit exit, assuming they go out of course.

"I think there are some added concerns. We haven't seen many cars stall on the grid over the last few years, it's become a rarity.

"But obviously if a car stalls before the start is given, we can abort the start and perform an extra formation lap. The most dangerous situations obviously occur when a driver stalls at the start of a race and that's something I'll be emphasising to the start marshals when I have a briefing with them."

Whiting also added that stewards will be sympathetic to teams who struggle to stay within the 107 percent rule during qualifying.

I think the 107 per cent rule was introduced to make sure that teams that weren't capable of producing a good car that was of the required performance wouldn't actually get into the races.

"What we have out here at the moment are 11 teams that we know are capable. They may be suffering a temporary performance loss but I'm sure the stewards will look very sympathetically on any team that doesn't make the 107 per cent.

"There is a mechanism in the rules to allow that to be done in exceptional circumstances."