Seidl: We need to wait to see what the FIA achieves with qualifying mode ban

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl has explained how teams have been left unsure on what exactly the FIA wants to achieve by banning the use of engine 'party modes' during qualifying.

The ban was initially meant to be implemented during next weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, but the FIA recently confirmed that it will not come into effect until the Italian Grand Prix a week later.

Speaking last weekend on the decision, Seidl said all the teams received the new rules by letter, but it did not confirm what exactly the teams will or will not be allowed to do in qualifying.

Seidl noted how the current power units are complex and have many different modes and settings and the FIA's intention to ban the use of a specified mode for qualifying may lead to teams finding ways around the ban in upcoming qualifying sessions.

“To be honest, we only have this information from that letter, which is a confidential letter, but it doesn’t go into the detail of what actually the FIA wants to achieve, so we need to wait for that,” Seidl said.

“As you know, nowadays with these complex power units, there’s a big priority of different settings existing for different modes on the combustion engine, for different modes of the hybrid system, the way you use the battery for reliability, for power, for attacking, defending and so on.

“And in the end, we need to wait for what change, if there’s a change, it is targeting."