In a bid to make the super soft tyre degrade faster, following a somewhat underwhelming debut of the new compound Dunlop in Darwin last year, the minimum pressure has been raised from 17 to 20 psi.
There was also a plan to outlaw baking tyres in the sun before sessions so they can be bled back to a lower true pressure, however that has been abandoned.
Even with the minimum pressure increase alone there are concerns from some drivers over how the races may play out.
Speaking after topping Practice 2 today, series leader Shane van Gisbergen said qualifying will be critical as passing will be difficult.
“Qualifying is going to be real important here," he said. "The tyre pressures are just stupidly high so you need to be up the front.
"If you’re following, it’s going to be super tough to race. I think everyone is going to be in the train just sliding around so you have got to try to qualify well."
When asked to elaborate on his feelings regarding the higher minimum pressure van Gisbergen declined to comment.
Andre Heimgartner, however, was happy share his thoughts on the matter, his concern that there will be little strategic flexibility to shake up the race.
“They could have maybe gone up not as high on the tyre pressures," he said.
"I think it’s a bit extreme but they’re trying, I guess, to get an extreme result so I think they are definitely going to get.
"No one really knows what’s going to happen. We’ve seen some long runs and the tyre deg is fairly significant so it’s going to impact the strategy.
"It might even make the race more boring because you can only pit in a certain window to make the whole race without absolutely blowing your tyres up, so we’ll have to wait and see."
Heimgartner doesn't, however, believe it will be a tyre conservation race with drivers trying to nurse rubber to the end.
Instead he thinks the deg will be inevitable and could feasibly provide some action late in the race.
“I think you’ve got different stages of obviously the drop-off and I think it’s going to go into the worst stage a lot quicker," he added. "So at the end of the race there’s going to be a lot of sliding around, people running wide, maybe a bit more action. We’ll have to wait and see."
