Due to the pace of innovation in F1 it is not unusual for the larger teams to be still developing new parts for a car on the Friday of the Grand Prix, in which cases they will often get those parts to the circuit in the hand baggage or checked baggage of someone back at the team factory, who jumps on a commercial flight and flys half way around the world just to deliver the part to the team at the circuit. I remember listening to a Red Bull podcast a while back where the factory receptionist was told to jump on a plane to Singapore (I think) to deliver a part and she was at the airport waiting to board and was called by the factory asking her to wait cause a dude from the factory was burning down the motorway on a motorbike with another new part for her to take, which ended up going in her hand bag.

F1 ‘gives back’ more technology than any other sporting activity I can think of. Aero, braking technology, efficient combustion, traction control, energy recovery from braking, etc…. all of this flows from F1 to commercial road cars.

Electric power may be the first commercial technology that flows in the other direction. I bet we’ll see it happen within 5 or 6 years. I will be a little sad because I love the sound of an F1 engine at 18K RPM.