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No decision reached over F1 qualifying change

A meeting of key F1 stakeholders in Bahrain has failed to reach a decision on changes to the qualifying format.

Following the largely negative response to the new elimination qualifying format in both Australia and Bahrain, the teams met with Bernie Ecclestone, FIA president Jean Todt and representatives from Pirelli at midday on Sunday to discuss whether to keep the new format or make changes.

Todt said on Saturday morning he was "optimistic" an agreement would be reached, with all options open in terms of changes. However, Sunday saw an impasse with some parties reluctant to revert to the 2015 format.

The meeting in the Bahrain paddock went on for 90 minutes but produced no agreement, with a proposal being tabled for the teams to assess and vote on Thursday.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner suggested the new proposal would focus on qualifying "perhaps with an aggregate time of two laps rather than a single lap."

Attempts from the teams to revert back to the 2015 qualifying format were blocked by the FIA and Ecclestone.

"We’re unified in that we need to make changes to the existing system that we have," Claire Williams said after leaving the meeting, having declined to reveal details of the proposal. "It’s far too early days to know what the result of that proposal and everyone’s analysis of it will be."

Ahead of the meeting, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had said: "If somebody puts a block in the system to make us stuck we should publicly crucify him in the paddock."

REPORT: Hamilton pips Rosberg to Bahrain pole by 0.077s

AS IT HAPPENED: Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.