Formula 1 teams have discussed the idea of increasing the sport's qualifying limit to 110 percent for next season, but the move appears unlikely to find any support.
At a meeting of F1's Sporting Working Group in Korea on Thursday, one of the ideas that was talked about was an opening up of the current 107 percent limit. Such a move would help the teams at the back of the grid avoid the risk of being sent home from races next year if a squad like Red Bull Racing makes a big step forward in form. However, despite the concept being debated by teams and FIA race director Charlie Whiting, the idea of changing the 107 percent rule did not garner much support and is almost certain to be dropped.
HRT team principal Colin Kolles, whose squad wanted a discussion about the 110 percent idea, said: "It is an idea that has been discussed many times, but we are happy to keep the current limit at 107 percent. We have no problems with it."
The return of the 107 percent rule this year has only caught out HRT once, when neither Vitantonio Liuzzi nor Narain Karthikeyan qualified for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after a difficult run through practice. Since then, every team has been allowed to start races after regularly completing laps within the cutoff point, even on occasions when their actual Q1 times have been outside the 107 percent margin.