Ferrari have stopped development on their 2005 car and could start next season with their current machine, technical director Ross Brawn has said.
New regulations to reduce car speeds are likely to be in place for the start of next season which means teams will need to rethink their machine designs.
"We had started next year's car and done quite a lot of work on it and most of that is now scrapped," said Brawn.
"A lot of teams will look at taking their old cars to the first few races."
He added: "I think it will be a struggle for teams to do a really good job
for the first race of the season and I think a lot of teams will
choose to have a compromise for the first few races to do a better
job for the subsequent races.
"We have had to stop gearbox design and have put a hold on some
of the chassis design. The engine that we were making has been
Although the new regulations would cause inconvenience Brawn admits that they are needed.
"We accept the changes are necessary and we look upon it as a
new challenge and a new set of rules we have to build the best car
to," he said.
Brawn also added that the imminent upheaval could have been avoided if the teams had been more prompt in responding to appeals from the FIA (the sport's governing body) to suggest ways of slowing cars up.
"We have only got ourselves to blame because we didn't respond
early enough and what we have now is what you always have as a
consequence of making rule changes that late."