Formula 1 should consider dropping the requirement of each team to run two cars, opening the way for single or three-car entries, says ex-Williams technical chief Pat Symonds.

The respected British engineer is now part of Ross Brawn's team at Liberty Media, conducting research into coming up with rules to improve the racing, predominantly from when the new Concorde Agreement comes into effect in 2021.

The thought of three-car teams, in particular, has been put forward before, when several teams collapsed leaving the grid with just the current total of 20 and Symonds wants to put it back on the agenda.

“What has been considered is what is the ideal number of cars,” he was quoted by RaceFans. “More in the context of ‘Should we introduce more teams to Formula One?’.

“It hasn’t been on the agenda, [but] it’s a good point and probably at our next meeting it’s something we will debate.”

Admittedly though, Symonds doesn't expect much support because of the current political landscape in F1.

“I think at the moment one of the problems that F1 has suffered from is that the teams have probably held too much power. It’s a little bit of ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ sometimes," he claimed.

“I guess they’ll be worried that if there was a smaller number of teams with a big power base, that’s probably not conducive to change and we all need to change and evolve as our sport changes, as the world around us changes.”