Elimination qualifying to stay for Bahrain after all
The elimination qualifying system is set to remain in place for the Bahrain GP after all, following a bizarre twist of events in the last few days.
After the teams agreed to dump it completely and return to the 2015 format – seemingly with the support of Bernie Ecclestone – it appears that Jean Todt led a move to introduce a hybrid system, with elimination in Q1 and Q2, and Q3 as per 2015 with all cars running together.
This had been mooted several weeks ago after race engineers and team managers suggested that there would not be much activity in Q3.
It was this proposal which went to the F1 Commission for a fax vote on Thursday, rather than any proposal to abandon it. Unanimity is needed for any changes at this stage and since no agreement could be found under the rules there is no choice but to go back to the elimination format, exactly as used in Australia.
It would appear that it is being given one more chance ahead of further possible changes for China.