Hyundai to enter F1 in 2010

[Ginger]

There is nothing quantifiable about teaching your engineers to "think outside the box" in

I don't really have anything to contribute to the F1 discussion. I think it bears noting that easily quantifiable results are not the only things worth considering when making investments. You're right that you can't quantify alternative thinking, but to say that because you can't that it has little to no benefit in the real world is silly. To teach design teams to think by showing them the products of the best engineers in the world can most definitely have a net positive effect on consumer products.

I'm not even remotely well versed in 4 wheel developments, but I'm curious as to where the development of manu-matic transmissions and fuel injection came from?

I can't cite Formula 1 examples, but trickle down technology from MotoGP is bursting, and very directly evident in street bikes. Slipper clutches are as common as radial brakes now, and you won't even find many car guys that know what they are (the clutches). Both developments got their start in GP (as did floating rotors). Tire advancement during the 500 era in GP brought huge changes in motorcycle street tires... and now we're getting dual compound street tires. "Big bang" motors may not have initally been the product of the GP environment, but they were, if you will, perfected there, and were, at a time, not uncommon in the World Superbike paddock. Maybe we'll see them on headlight racebikes soon. Geometry research, traction control, the first motorcycle fly by wire throttles, carbon brakes (which you can buy in the consumer market now), and on and on. Some of the developments weren't necessarily limited to MotoGP, we see similar brake technology in F1, but the stuff still made it to the street... and rather quickly, to boot. That would lead me to believe that F1 technology doesn't not make it to the street, but perhaps in ways that are harder to see... especially given the huge complication of 4 wheelers when compared to 2.