Formula One is a tight-knit world of distant super-technology, secret from all of us. Even the smallest parts have a kind of mythical glow about them, unattainable. But also, old pieces of these cars show up in private hands all the time, and you can just buy them.
F1 thinker Craig Scarborough, the greatest English-language source for explaining F1 tech out there, recently put some old F1 parts for sale. These are bits that spy photographers might have beaten each other up for pictures of when they were new, but they’ve become obsolete, so now they’re on eBay.
Am I going to have a great use for a blown diffuser piece from the old Minardi team, currently bidding at £40?
Not really. But I still kind of want it to put at the center of my bedroom, on a pedestal, lit by lamps pointing from each corner of the room, so that it may bless me in my sleep.