The FIA Formula One Commission met in London on Monday to discuss and vote on a number of changes to the way the Formula One championship will be conducted in the future. There are several changes afoot with the main one being to the way qualifying is held, the normal one long Saturday session scrapped in favour of a single- lap format where each driver gets just one chance to set a qualifying time.

The second major change was to the way points are allocated. Instead of only the top six finishers receiving a reward for their effort, the top eight will be awarded points. Other items were discussed, including the banning of team orders, and the following is a complete run down on the decisions taken.

Qualifying
- There will be two qualifying sessions - Friday and Saturday, both 13.00 - 14.00
- qualifying to be one (only) flying lap for each car, cars to run one at a time
- running order on Friday to follow Championship (previous year at first race), with Championship leader going out first, 2nd in Championship running second, and so on
- running order on Saturday will be determined by the Friday times (which do not count for the grid), so that the fastest on Friday runs last on Saturday, the second fastest second last, and so on. Practice schedule
This will remain Friday: 11.00 to 12.00 and Saturday: 09.00 to 09.45 and 10.15 to 11.00 (with qualifying from 13.00 to 14.00 both days, as above).

Testing
Provided that by 15 December, at least three teams undertake to the FIA not to run more than 10 car-days of private testing between 1 March and 1 November, the teams which have given this undertaking will be able to test at each Event from 09.00 to 11.00 on Friday and may use their spare car and their test driver during this period.

World Championship points
From 2003 points will be awarded down to 8th place on the scale 10:8:6:5:4:3:2:1 (previously to 6th place on the scale 10:6:4:3:2:1).

Team orders
Team orders which interfere with the race result are prohibited.

The 2003 Belgian Grand Prix
In the absence of unanimous agreement by the teams to run at the 2003 Belgian Grand Prix without tobacco advertising, this event has been removed from the World Championship calendar.

Tyres
Each team will be allowed to use two different dry tyres at each Event, (previously each tyre company could supply only the same two dry tyres to each of its teams). Teams will continue to be limited to 10 sets of dry tyres per Event. Only one type of wet tyre to be used per Event.