Some years ago Racecar Engineering magazine had an excellent editorial that touched on the rising costs of F1, the technological benefit to consumers these prog

Some years ago Racecar Engineering magazine had an excellent editorial that touched on the rising costs of F1, the technological benefit to consumers these programs can have but also the rising difficulty of keeping up with the Joneses and that perhaps we might be reaching the budgetary limit of what racing teams can realistically finance. The author proposed "Formula Zero," where teams would be national rather than purely sponsor-oriented. Team America (cue music) vs. Team Japan vs. Team Italy etc. Note that this was years before the zero-emissions effort of the same name. Cool idea, and one might imagine what could emerge from efforts where NASA helps with aerodynamics for Team America, DLR for Germany, etc. (and/or DOE's combustion engineering experts consulting on Team America engine design: the potential collaborations run long). Fun fact: a major limiting factor for racing speed is the allowed size of the brakes. Let F-1 cars have titanic wheels with low profile tires and lap speeds would shoot way up. Of course, brake too little or too late and the resulting wreck will almost certainly be fatal — it's pretty tough to protect against coup-contrecoup injuries no matter how energy-absorbent the car may be when speeds get really high. Scrambled brains are good for breakfast, bad for drivers.