FIA confirms qualifying change with immediate effect
The FIA has confirmed that it plans to revert Formula 1's qualifying system to the 2015 format with immediate effect, starting with next weekend's Chinese Grand Prix.
As Motorsport.com revealed earlier, the teams unanimously rallied against the idea of an aggregate system that would count drivers' best two laps.
Instead, they had demanded in a letter written to FIA president Jean Todt, Bernie Ecclestone and CVC, that F1 abandons the current elimination system and revert to the format used last year.
Such an option had not been made available to teams beforehand, but in light of their unanimous stance, in the end Todt and Ecclestone agreed to back down.
The move to change the rules will now be put forward to the F1 Commission for approval.
A statement from the FIA read: "At the unanimous request of the teams in a letter received today, Jean Todt, President of the FIA, and Bernie Ecclestone, commercial rights holder representative, accepted, in the interests of the Championship, to submit a proposal to the F1 Commission and World Motor Sport Council to revert to the qualifying format in force in 2015.
"This proposal, if approved by the F1 governing bodies, will take effect as from the Chinese Grand Prix and will apply for the rest of the season."
The statement added: "Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone welcomed the idea put forward by the teams to have a global assessment of the format of the weekend for 2017."
Teams have offered to trial new ideas later this season, and are open to experimenting with radical qualifying formats if the world championships are settled early.
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