It's been formally confirmed now that they will be sticking to the new qualifying format in this weekends race in Bahrain. Apparently Jean Todt, the president of the FIA, had refused to have the option of the old qualifying format presented to the teams at the meeting last week as he decided he wasn't going to be dictated to by the teams. Vettel summed up the situation icely:

"Put it this way: You sell ice cream, and it's vanilla and everybody that comes to your shop is asking for chocolate ice cream. And the next day everyone comes expecting you to sell chocolate ice cream but you sell vanilla again. You do what your clients would like you to do. You are not really doing your job by doing the exact opposite."