By Andrew Benson Motorsport editor at Silverstone

Mosley was speaking at Silverstone ahead of the British GP

Describing the quest as "critical", he said systems that stored energy lost during braking and reapplied it on acceleration could be ready by 2009.

Mosley said: "Saving fuel, saving energy is absolutely fundamental.

"If we are going to have a high-tech F1 then the research should be devoted to areas that are relevant to road cars and of benefit to society," he said.

Mosley said the current situation in F1, where manufacturers spend hundreds of millions of pounds a year chasing higher revs and more horsepower, was outdated.

We would like to move into an area which is relevant to what road cars are doing Max Mosley

The FIA president will enforce a three-year freeze on engine technology in 2008 but plans to go further.

"We would like to introduce a new engine formula where the limit of power is not the size of the engine, but the amount of energy that can be consumed," he said.

"We're simply trying to move research from a sterile area of finding higher revs every year and move it into an area which is directly relevant to what road cars are doing."

The principle is similar to the "hybrid" road cars that some manufacturers have already released on to the market.

But Mosley said the technology would be more advanced than the most common current road-car systems, in which energy is stored in a battery.

The system he has in mind - but which he stopped two teams pursuing a decade ago - would deliver a boost of power at the touch of a button.

"At the moment all the energy of braking is dissipated in heat," said Mosley.

"We believe every team should have some form of equipment that can store energy when the car brakes to be used when the car accelerates again.

"On the basis of what is known at the moment, this would enable a car to store about 400kj of energy - which translates to about 60 horsepower for about nine seconds. It could be used for overtaking.