FIA meeting to decide fate of F1 qualifying system

It could lead to a change as early as the next race in Bahrain.

The FIA invited the 11 team managers to attend. They have been told to represent the views of their teams rather than personal views, and that they can bring their team principals along as well if they so wish. Among those in the meeting are Christian Horner, Toto Wolff, Niki Lauda, Eric Boullier, Maurizio Arrivabene and Franz Tost.

Bernie Ecclestone is not represented in the meeting, although he has made his views clear to team bosses by phone.

The two most likely scenarios for the next race in Bahrain are scrapping the whole system, or the even more likely option of a 'hybrid' of the old and new systems.

Several weeks ago the same group of team managers agreed a revision to the elimination system that involved Q3 running to a traditional format, with no eliminations and all the drivers able to run at the end, as in the past.

All parties agreed that it was a sensible solution, but FIA President Jean Todt was reluctant to change direction and not allow the full elimination procedure to go through, so it never went back to the F1 Commission in that format.

This happened despite the rules not having been officially written at that stage, which would have allowed some room for change before they became official.

Any decision taken today has to be agreed by all the teams. It will then go to a vote of the strategy group – the six top teams, Ecclestone and Todt – and then onto the F1 Commission and World Motor Sport Council, for formal ratification.