Current regulations to stay for Imola

The F1 team managers and technical directors are due to meet with FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting on Wednesday, April 9, to discuss the detailed workings of F1's new procedures in the light of the first three races. However, another scheduled meeting involving the team principals two days later has been postponed until Thursday April 16 at Imola.

"The reason is that we want to do a more thorough job than we have time available," one leading team boss explained in Brazil. "We had a team principals' meeting yesterday [Friday] and decided that we needed more time to analyse what the better parts of the regulations are.

"There are still strong views held by most people about every single regulation but, as you can imagine, those people who feel that they have got an advantage from something tend to err towards keeping that specific regulation.

"Perhaps the most recent example was an FIA bulletin [the gist of which suggested that it was down to the teams and not the FIA that the tyre companies had brought intermediates rather than full wet tyres to Brazil!] triggered by the teams push for the reintroduction of two wet tyres. Obviously one wet tyre didn't suit some teams, so we need more time to try to come to a consensus."

As FIA president Max Mosley has pointed out, procedural changes can be made but the new rules (single lap qualifying, one wet tyre and two wet tyres per team) cannot be altered this year unless there is unanimous agreement. The delay is down to a desire among the team principals not to be pressured into making decisions that are not fully thought through.