Incessant Wolff demands F1 qualifying change

Toto Wolff has called on F1's key stakeholders to agree to change qualifying on Sunday after being left "without words" in Bahrain.

Elimination-style qualifying was used for the second time in Bahrain on Saturday following its introduction at the start of this season, with the format remaining in place despite huge opposition from teams and fans in Australia. After another poor spectacle, Wolff strongly criticised the current format ahead of a meeting to decide its future on Sunday.

"It’s unbelievable," Wolff said. "We are sitting in front of the screen with all this data and all these intelligent people on the pit wall, less intelligent in the garage - where I sit with Niki [Lauda], I mean - and with all this data you can’t follow it!

"You have guys jumping out of their cars even though they would have another three minutes to go, [Sergio] Perez on a quick lap with the time lapsed already, [Pascal] Wehrlein could have gone for one more shot but I don’t think they realised that. Then at the end, when half of the guys jump out of the car and Q3 is still running, it’s just without words."

Asked if he is confident there will be unanimity on Sunday rather than one  party blocking change, Wolff replied: "If somebody puts a block in the system to make us stuck we should publicly crucify him in the paddock. Is that politically correct?"

And Wolff is also strongly campaigning for a complete scrapping of the whole qualifying format rather than just tweaks to Q3.

"I think after today’s Q1 and Q2, I don’t see what you can like there. It’s very difficult to follow who is in and who is out and I think we have a duty to simplify the sport rather than add complexity. It doesn’t mix up the field in a way that makes the races more entertaining, so I hope we can have some reasonable discussions tomorrow."