On 28th October 2002, the FIA Formula One Commission met in London and decided on the regulation changes to be implemented for the 2003 season. The main changes in the Qualifying sessions included the introduction of two qualifying sessions, one on Friday and the other on Saturday, both being conducted between 13.00pm - 14.00pm. The qualifying session would see the flying laps restricted to just one per car and cars running one at a time. The running order for the qualifying on Friday for the first race of the season would see the Championship leader going out first, 2nd in Championship running second, and so on while the running order for Saturday was to be determined by the Friday times (which did not count for the grid), so that the fastest on Friday runs last on Saturday, the second fastest second last, and so on.

Similar changes were also seen in the rules governing the Practice sessions. According to the new rules, Practice sessions were to be carried out on Friday between 11:00am to 12:00pm and in two sets on Saturday, the first between 09:00am to 09:45am and the second set from 10:15am to 11:00am.

The new rules also affected the testing practices of the F1 teams. According to the 2003 rules, teams were allowed to test their cars at each Event from 09:00 to 11:00am on Friday, which included the use of a spare car and a test driver, as long as they are one of the minimum three teams that gave an undertaking to the FIA stating that they would not run more than 10 car-days of private testing between 1 March and 1 November.

The 2003 rules also saw the inception of a new point system which awarded points down to the 8th place on the scale 10:8:6:5:4:3:2:1.

The new set of rules determined the fate of the 2003 Belgian Grand Prix as well. According to the new regulations it was decided that the Belgian Grand Prix (GP) would be scrapped off the World Championship calendar if the F1 teams fail to reach a unanimous agreement of competing at the GP with tobacco advertising.

Further, the 2003 rules had an impact on the tyre usage of the F1 teams. In 2003, the FIA allowed each team to use two different dry tyres at each Event in place of the same two tyre regulation which was previously applicable. However, the restriction of 10 sets of dry tyres per Event was continued with only one type of wet tyre allowed to be used per Event.

The FIA Commission also laid stringent restriction on Team orders for the 2003 season by completely prohibiting all team orders that interfered with the race result. Moreover, in its efforts to cut costs in F1, the FIA Commission enforced more laws on 15th January 2003, which later came to be revised on 21st January 2003 following the report of FIA’s Technical Working Group. Among the major modifications, radio communication wasn’t banned but restricted. Car to pit telemetry was allowed for the 2003 season along with the option of the use of the spare car if the racecar was damaged beyond repair. The Technical Working Group also announced the ban on Traction Control and fully automatic gearboxes following the 2003 British Grand Prix. Accordingly, the proposed standard ECU was also removed as new technology and extra sensors ensured the ban on Traction