Speaking at the Bathurst 12 Hours at the weekend, Webber told reporters that the more aggressive, faster F1 cars will be more spectacular to watch – and that engine power would be more important than ever due to the increased drag.

“The sporting side should be a good step forward, the cars are going to be quicker than they’ve been for a long time,” said Webber.

“The drivers will be earning their money again, and they’ll be sweating on the podium again, which will be great.

“They’ll be going back to laptimes like we used to do 10 years ago. I think that will be a good visual to watch.

“The cars are going to have a lot more downforce, but it’s going to be more power sensitive than ever. You’ll need a bigger engine more than you ever have done, because of wider tyres and more drag.

“The cars are getting quite heavy, with the wider tyres, which is a bit unfortunate – because it will slow them down.”

One negative Webber did suggest that hasn’t been addressed is F1’s continued use of small-profile tyres.

“The cars will look alright, apart from the rubbish-profile tyre,” he added. “We need a bigger profile tyre.

“They’re still quite small in that regard, but the rest of it looks pretty good.”

Speed comparison

Formula 1's rule changes for this year were prompted by a belief that cars had become too slow in the V6 turbo hybrid era.

Historical data from the Spanish Grand Prix highlights just how much things have changed - and shows why F1 chiefs wanted to turn the situation around.

For although pole positions times have not fallen away so much - thanks to increased downforce and engine power - it is race pace where the biggest difference is seen.

This drop in pace is down to heavier cars at the start, thanks to a refuelling ban, and high degradation tyres.

In a comparison of race pace between the 2007 and 2016, the fastest opening stint to the Spanish GP came in 2008 when Kimi Raikkonen led early on for Ferrari.

The Finn delivered a blistering sequence of laps when racing began properly following an early safety car restart: 1m23.035s, 1m22.934s, 1m22.703s, 1m22.947s.

Last year, race leader Daniel Ricciardo’s opening laps for Red Bull after the safety car restart were: 1m30.042s, 1m30.264, 1m30.506s, 1m30.577s

Have those two cars racing on the same track at the same time, and Raikkonen would have been nearly 30 seconds clear after four laps.

Here is how the pole positions time for GP2 and F1 compare since the current configuration of Barcelona track was used since 2007:

Year GP2 pole F1 pole 2007 87.713s 81.421s* 2008 87.547s 81.813s* 2009 87.510s 80.527s* 2010 87.727s 79.995s 2011 90.473s 80.981s 2012 90.655s 82.285s 2013 88.706s 80.718s 2014 89.293s 85.232s 2015 89.273 84.681 2016 87.807 82.000

* – race fuel qualifying

Opening laptimes

Year Lap 2 Lap 3 Lap 4 Lap 5 Lap 2-5 total 2007 83.751 83.561 83.017 83.109 333.438 2008 83.035 82.934 82.703 82.947 331.619 * SC start 2009 84.325 83.898 83.849 83.744 335.816 * SC start 2010 88.430 88.074 87.990 87.608 352.102 2011 90.812 90.606 90.012 90.318 361.748 2012 90.597 90.382 90.011 90.248 361.238 2013 91.123 91.188 90.671 91.064 364.046 2014 92.010 92.104 91.913 92.028 368.055 2015 92.313 91.755 92.027 91.908 368.003 2016 90.042 90.264 90.506 90.577 361.389 * SC start

Additional reporting by Andrew van Leeuwen