When the FIA flirted with an F1 promotion/relegation system

On 15 February 2006, Formula 1 was on the brink of more than just a new season – it was at the centre of one of the most audacious and controversial ideas ever floated by an FIA president.

Max Mosley, then head of motorsport's world governing body, suggested introducing a football-style promotion and relegation system between F1 and its feeder category, then GP2.

In a sport dominated by financial muscle and longstanding teams, Mosley argued that the existing closed shop was unsustainable.

"What ought to happen, and we are nowhere near sorting this out, is that we should have a feeder formula for Formula 1, like a sort of F3000/GP2, but properly regulated for that purpose," he told reporters.

"And then we say that whoever wants a super-licence must come through that formula… and the worst of the F1 teams had to consider going down."

Mosley’s pitch was rooted in what he saw as structural flaws in the sport: the vast gap in budgets between GP2 outfits and F1 teams, and the difficulty for new entrants to break in.

Under his vision, a successful GP2 team would earn its way up, while uncompetitive F1 teams might find themselves fighting for their place.

To make that possible, he also pressed for a more equitable distribution of prize money from Bernie Ecclestone, arguing that smaller teams needed a fairer slice of the sport's revenues to survive both in and out of the top tier.

Yet the reaction was immediate and largely unfavourable. Within the paddock and beyond, many saw the idea as impractical, if not outlandish.

Critics pointed to the crushing difference between operating a GP2 team on a modest budget and funding a Formula 1 campaign running into hundreds of millions of dollars.

The notion that a relegated F1 team could retain sponsorship, let alone bounce back, was dismissed by rivals as fanciful at best.

While no major team made public statements at the time directly attacking Mosley’s idea, the lack of enthusiasm spoke volumes.

The established constructors – comfortable under the existing Concorde Agreement with their guaranteed grid slots and revenue shares – had little appetite for a system that threatened both their financial security and their place in the sport.

In the months that followed, the promotion/relegation proposal quietly faded, never gaining the support needed to reach formal debate.

In hindsight, Mosley's gambit feels like a relic of a very different Formula 1 era. Today, with budget caps and a more structured ladder leading to F1, the sport has tackled some of the inequalities Mosley highlighted – albeit through very different means.