Formula 1 will continue with the elimination qualifying used at the Australian Grand Prix after unanimous support to change the format failed during a F1 Commission vote on Thursday.
Although a meeting of the Strategy Group on the morning before the Australian GP agreed unanimously to ditch the format – which sees drivers eliminated every 90 seconds after a set period of time – the same decision wasn't agreed upon by the F1 Commission – a 26-member group made up of representatives from the teams, the FIA, Formula One Management, race promoters and sponsors.
It's believed Bernie Ecclestone was one of those who voted against ditching it completely or tweaking it so that Q1 and Q2 remain unchanged, whilst Q3 reverts back to how it previously worked in 2015.
Ecclestone urged team bosses to give the format a second chance, believing it shouldn't be ditched after one unsuccessful trial. Therefore it will remain in place for the second round of the championship in Bahrain before it's reviewed again ahead of the Chinese GP.
"They're going to do what I proposed, which is leave things as they are for this race [in Bahrain]," Ecclestone told Autosport.
"After that we will then have a good look and decide whether what was done was the right thing to do, the wrong thing to do, does it need modifying, does it need scrapping?"
