I'll defer to someone better informed than me but I understood that as a reference to the rules and regulations around F1 cars. The "Formula" in "Formula 1" me

I'll defer to someone better informed than me but I understood that as a reference to the rules and regulations around F1 cars. The "Formula" in "Formula 1" means there are certain constraints (i.e., the formula) to how you can design your car. Very quick illustration, check out the buzz on the new F1 car spec for next year. It is already touted to be faster than this year's cars mostly because of aero changes. Even easier illustration: the current (and I assume all future) spec has this halo whose sole purpose is to protect the driver. It's a ~7kg frame that's basically dead weight to the car. You can remove that and instantly gain maybe a few seconds of laptime at the expense of safety (I am in favor of the halo's presence, btw.). The spec aside, the rules and regulations also try to enforce a competitive line-up so they regulate budget and, next year, wind tunnel testing time. So in theory if teams had carte blanche for car R&D we can have faster cars. But they won't be F1-compliant so they lose by default.