Toto Wolff says nothing should stand in the way of Formula One reverting to the 2015 qualifying system at a meeting in the Bahrain paddock on Sunday.
After the new qualifying system flopped at the opening round in Australia, plans to change the format failed to progress through F1's web of politics. Instead, the same system was kept for Saturday's qualifying session in Bahrain and, rather predictably, it produced a similar show.
F1 team bosses, Pirelli, the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone will meet in Bahrain ahead of Sunday's race to discuss changes for the next round in China and Wolff said it was no longer acceptable for the current system to continue.
"If somebody puts a block in the system to make us stuck we should publically crucify him in the paddock," he said, adding: "Is that politically correct?"
"I think after today's Q1 and Q2, I don't see what you can like there. It's very difficult to follow who is in and who is out and I think we have a duty to simplify the sport rather than add complexity. It doesn't mix up the field in a way that makes the races more entertaining, so I hope we can have some reasonable discussions tomorrow."
Wolff said he and Mercedes chairman Niki Lauda were struggling to follow the session on Saturday night, despite having reams of data in front of them.
"It's unbelievable, we are sitting in front of the screen with all this data and all these intelligent people on the pit wall, less intelligent in the garage -- where I sit with Niki, I mean -- and with all this data you can't follow it! You have guys jumping out of their cars even though they would have another three minutes to go, [Sergio] Perez on a quick lap with the time lapsed already, Wehrlein could have gone for one more shot but I don't think they realised that. Then at the end, when half of the guys jump out of the car and Q3 is still running, it's just without words."
Despite FIA president Jean Todt's eagerness to salvage something from the new system, Wolff is confident Saturday's show will mean he agrees to revert to the 2015 format.
"When I have spoken to Jean Todt last week he said he wanted to approach it in a structured way and he thinks that Q1 and Q2 there is maybe something to learn and therefore he'd rather go for the hybrid version once again to find out if it's all bad, and if we realise that it's all bad then probably the most realistic scenario is to go back to the 2015 scenario.
"I think we are not in a position any more now that we have run it twice to do experiments for Shanghai, because we would look like fools. Maybe there is a different format that could be interesting and today I have heard somebody mentioning that there could be a single lap shootout with the last eight drivers.
"Honestly I think that could be interesting. I remember the FIA GT did this ten years ago and it was very exciting with lots of TV time for the car on track, but again I think we need to properly assess this. If we found out that all the data and all the information will make it look like an interesting format then we should implement it in the rules and race it next year. But in a structured way."