Formula One's new 'crap' qualifying system scrapped after Australian Grand Prix

Formula One will revert to last year's qualifying system following a debacle with the new rolling-elimination format at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

F1 officials held a meeting with teams on Sunday ahead of the race and agreed to go back to the previous system which was based on the lap times at the end of each of the three segments of qualifying.

The new system of rolling eliminations every 90 seconds proved confusing to fans in the first two segments on Saturday and led to a quiet third session as most drivers elected to stay in the garage and save tires rather than go out and try to better their times.

Bernie Ecclestone, F1's chief executive, called new qualifying system 'crap' after farcical debut in Australia 

The change will need approval from the F1 Commission, and should be in place for the next race in Bahrain.

Bernie Ecclestone had admitted on Saturday that the new system was 'crap'.

'I am sure we can get it changed for Bahrain,' he said. 'We should be man enough to say - we gave it a try, it didn't work, let's find a new way of doing it.

Mercedes' Nico Rosberg, who won the Australian Grand Prix, said F1 should return to the old qualifying format 

'My idea was a simple one - you leave qualifying as it is and then add a bit on to the time to make up the grid.

'You take the results of the last race, and the guy who won that race would have so many seconds, or tenths of a second, added to his qualifying time to determine the grid for the race itself.

'So that might put the guy on pole in sixth or seventh or wherever on the grid, and then we would get a mixed-up grid and some good racing for at least two-thirds of the race. That's what we should do now.

'The guy who started on pole would still have a good chance of winning.'

The Mercedes driver will have been left happier after he claimed first race of season ahead of Lewis Hamilton