The FIA has now formally confirmed that F1 will return to the 2015 qualifying system for the Chinese GP.
The news comes after Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone were finally convinced by the teams that the old system was preferable to any of the revisions that were proposed. There will also be a review of the weekend format for 2017.
Although it still has to go to a vote of the F1 Commission and then World Motor Sport Council, that should now be a formality.
A joint FIA/FOM statement said: “At the unanimous request of the teams in a letter received today, Jean Todt, President of the FIA, and Bernie Ecclestone, commercial rights holder representative, accepted, in the interests of the Championship, to submit a proposal to the F1 Commission and World Motor Sport Council to revert to the qualifying format in force in 2015.
“This proposal, if approved by the F1 governing bodies, will take effect as from the Chinese Grand Prix and will apply for the rest of the season.
“Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone welcomed the idea put forward by the teams to have a global assessment of the format of the weekend for 2017.”
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
I’m delighted and pleasantly surprised! But I won’t kid myself that F1 has discovered democracy. This is a one-off and there will be a price to pay either in the engine supply deal or when a hard up team needs a payment advance from Bernie..
Any need to sweat on the dreaded Ferrari veto here……:-)
Just kidding.
“…should now be a formality” – as should the last two or three qualifying decisions that went the opposite way!
Funnily enough, the now ditched Q format still had the cars lining up pretty much in team (performance) order. Mercedes 1-2 and the Ferrari’s on the second row.
The thing I’m most exited about this season is the different tyre strategies the teams can take, particularly the Q2 cars.
The action in the midfield this year has been great to watch.
And I was just warming up to the knock- out format. 😉
Ha! The only thing it managed to knock out was my interest.
I’m fearing that this means we cannot have 2015 qualifying rules at all come 2017 onwards …..
So they finally fixed something that needed to be fixed because they tried to fix something that wasn’t broken to begin with…