F1 very purposely constrains technological
innovation — again since the 80s — specifically to
avoid technology being a bigger victory factor than
driver skills.
I'm not sure that that's a reasonable analysis. The restrictions aren't there to keep humans important. They're there to keep humans
alive.
I read an article once in which an F1 team's lead engineer claimed that a car with no limitations would average 300 hundred miles per hour around a track that's identical to a current track but turned so all the curves were banked 90 degrees to the outside. I believe it. Gas turbine, vacuum system, active cooling on the brakes, everything fully shrouded and active aerodynamic surfaces everywhere, electronic stability and traction controls...
The thing is, humans aren't getting that much faster or stronger, and we know that these unlimited cars would be unmanageable. Restrictions seem to be tightened in direct response to severe accidents that increase in frequency as engineering advances. It turns out that letting cars get any faster than they are right now doesn't make human skill irrelevant, it just gets people killed. Modern cars, as they constrained as they are, are already at the limits of human performance.
And this isn't surprising! The most maneuverable jet fighters in the world are built to turn at about 10g. The most maneuverable fighters built in WWII were also built to turn at about 10g [1, 2]. Humans stop functioning around... 10g. If you had an aircraft racing league, letting teams build higher-performance planes wouldn't result in victory going to the highest-performance plane. Higher-performance planes would result in victory going to the pilot most willing to die. Which is precisely what we see in air racing: The Red Bull Air Race rules instantly disqualify racers that pull 10g for more than half a second or 12g ever [4].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor#Sp...
2: https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/insight-into-the-magni...
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-LOC#Thresholds
4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Air_Race_World_Champi...
5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control
I read an article once in which an F1 team's lead engineer claimed that a car with no limitations would average 300 hundred miles per hour around a track that's identical to a current track but turned so all the curves were banked 90 degrees to the outside. I believe it. Gas turbine, vacuum system, active cooling on the brakes, everything fully shrouded and active aerodynamic surfaces everywhere, electronic stability and traction controls...
The thing is, humans aren't getting that much faster or stronger, and we know that these unlimited cars would be unmanageable. Restrictions seem to be tightened in direct response to severe accidents that increase in frequency as engineering advances. It turns out that letting cars get any faster than they are right now doesn't make human skill irrelevant, it just gets people killed. Modern cars, as they constrained as they are, are already at the limits of human performance.
And this isn't surprising! The most maneuverable jet fighters in the world are built to turn at about 10g. The most maneuverable fighters built in WWII were also built to turn at about 10g [1, 2]. Humans stop functioning around... 10g. If you had an aircraft racing league, letting teams build higher-performance planes wouldn't result in victory going to the highest-performance plane. Higher-performance planes would result in victory going to the pilot most willing to die. Which is precisely what we see in air racing: The Red Bull Air Race rules instantly disqualify racers that pull 10g for more than half a second or 12g ever [4].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor#Sp... 2: https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/insight-into-the-magni... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-LOC#Thresholds 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Air_Race_World_Champi... 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control