Jenson Button says he would be willing to give aggregate qualifying a go because anything, including "driving around with one eye closed", is better than the current live elimination format.
F1 chiefs will meet this week to try and decide on a new qualifying format after failing to agree on change on Sunday in Bahrain. The derided live elimination format failed to mix up the grid or produce a more entertaining session in its second attempt at Sakhir and it seemed certain to be scrapped in a meeting between the teams.
However, after talks lasting 90 minutes, no new system had been agreed upon, with the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone resisting the teams' push to revert to the popular 2015 format. One of the proposals on the table would see drivers set two lap times, with the aggregate of those attempts making up the eventual grid.
Button, one of the chairmen of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association which recently published an open letter calling for an overhaul of F1's "obsolete and ill-structured" governance, thinks any proposal agreed upon this week would be progress.
"If it's an aggregate system, I'll give it a go," Button said. "That's all you can say. It's better than this one. Anything is better than this one.
"Drivers driving around with one eye closed would be better than this one. I look forward to change, and that's what's hopefully coming."
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said the stalemate over qualifying is "madness" and dictated by "various agendas" by those making decisions. It is clear teams will have to agree to another completely new format on Thursday or risk arriving at the Chinese Grand Prix with the live elimination system still in place.
On Sunday, Christian Horner said: "The bottom line is that if we don't agree to a compromise then we are stuck with what we've got."