11/12/2006
NEWS STORY
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F1 is going to get one step closer to football in 2008, according to Max Mosley who says he wants a relegation system to come into effect then.
In an interview with Caroline Reid, which appeared in Sunday's News of the World, Mosley said that his goal is for persistent backmarkers to be shunted out of the sport if teams with better prospects want to come in.
Mosley is introducing the system into Formula One's new five-year Concorde Agreement which comes into force in 2008. At that time there will be no space on the grid as Prodrive will enter F1, bringing the tally of teams to the maximum of 12.
Rather than increase the limit, Mosley wants backmarkers to be booted out. "You do need some sort of system for bringing people in and bringing them out," he says.
"If there is a team that is consistently 11th or 12th for three, four or five years and there's a brilliant outfit that wants to come in, it can't be right not to let it. We need a mechanism."
Mosley adds that this will "certainly" be in the 2008 Concorde, because "if I don't do it now it could be another five years." He adds that he expects the teams to sign the contract around the start of next year's F1 season in March.
Mosley suggests that a team that has been running at the back of the field for a number of years could be forced to drop one of its two cars, to make way for a better entry. If the troubled team did not then get up to speed, its remaining car would hit the buffers. One possibility is that the team could end up in GP2 although the logistical problems with this could scupper such a plan.
Mosley says this system could pave the way for a new carmaker to join F1's ranks. "My feeling is that we are more likely to gain a manufacturer in the next three years than we are to lose one," he adds.