Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
in the past, teams would opt to choose to leave them as scrap at the end of the weekend if they did not see it fit to be (re)used or didn't want to bother for some reason. Some parts might be information-sensitive [read: when the S-nose was first introduced and nobody really know what was happening, you don't want the part ending in the hands of the competition and then they're able to copy it before the next race weekend pops up], so they take them with them instead. some parts they want for analysis, so they'll take them too if neccesary.
if an entire front wing comes loose for example, you want to know how that was possible if you can't find anything on data indicating a collision or contact of such. faulty bonding, faulty wires, cracks in the material.....
so in a variety of situations teams would either want to have the components returned, or leave for scrap.
now i don't know the current regulations on scrap material.
on one hand, you could argue that means finders keepers and you get a nosecone to hang on your wall.
sounds fun, but then on the other hand, people scavenge for stuff like that and start selling them for lots of money and make a good income from it, despite it not being their
property.
Though that sounds a bit sore to one end, it's not entirely without merit. Teams would have no problem in fans enjoying this honestly. But if some 'deadbeat leecher' then discovers a new form of income by scavenging all these items and selling them for such money that fans can't afford it except for the die-hard ones, simply put, ripping people off, then it would surely raise some eyebrows.
I know for many 'scrap' parts or trash in general there are actually laws prohibiting 3rd parties to aquire this.
In other words, scavenging in piles or containers of garbage and scrap is forbidden and even penalizable.
Understandable even as garbage companies not only 'earn' money from simply 'getting' the trash, they additionaly have their income from the materials in the garbage,
and nobody wants people snooping in garbage containers which usually has them taking out stuff they dont want and leaving it on the streets untill they find something 'valuable'.
So if these rules also apply to F1 scrap then i don't think it's that easy anymore to aquire these components.
And then i think chances are slim you'd get it because track marshalls would be the first ones to keep valuable materials they know teams don't want anyway, and thus it comes down to the 'filantropist' side of the marshall to see it end up with himself, family members or friends, fans, or whether he offers it for sale on the internet.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
I can certainly imagine that larger pieces are returned to the teams (or at least requested to be returned) but the smaller pieces of bodywork etc are probably ignored. After all, in a crash involving multiple vehicles, who is going to know which piece belongs to which car if the piece is all black. In the examples above, it's clearly a mercedes due to the paintwork, but lots of pieces are just black and would you risk returning a piece of bodywork to the wrong team who can then use it to figure out your carbon fibre recipe etc.
Same for pirelli I suspect, they will request that any large pieces of tyre are returned for material analysis and to prevent their compound recipe falling into the wrong hands, but there's not much they can do about the marbles etc.
i suspect there's something in the contract between FIA and track owners about recovering material though.
personally i find those small parts completely worthless and don't see the benefit or the gain from having it, but i guess i'm not that 'type of fan'. I don't see the use of the DRS sign either, but well, each to their own.
A nosecone, a Front Wing, a rear wing, a wheel, a mirror, a rear wing, these are things i could see 'worth' scavenging for though.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
