You guys seem to be under the impression that if the rules were lifted, teams would immediately build cars that caused their drivers to pass out in the middle of turn 1. That wouldn't happen. Cars don't typically win races with unconcious drivers.
During two eras, F1 nearly became this dangerous: During the end of ground-effect era (1981-1982) of GP cars, the cars were designed to suck down to the track with the car acting as one huge wing. The cars used a very small amount of suspension travel for the aim of incredible cornering speeds; the driver didn't really lift, he just planted his right foot on the gas pedal and the car gained even more downforce through the turns, sort of the opposite of the way a car would normally behave when entering a turn. Yet, the incredible downforce produced by the car could actually do just that. Since the tracks were not perfectly smooth and usually not completely flat, the driver endured a great bit of beating up due to G-force loading during cornering. Heck, even the
flat and
featureless circuits made up for that by having incredibly hot weather.
During the early-1990's F1 cars were also gaining more and more aerodynamic as well as mechanical grip, and thus many drvers were complaining of "blacking-out" in some high-speed corners of F1 courses. A reduction in tire grip as well as various restrictions on aerodynamics were enforced; some were employed as methods to keep cars closer together, but it is more likely that it made overtaking more difficult since stying in the slipstream of another car caused a disruption of airflow during braking. Others just speculated the current crop of drivers just couldn't drive, or were merely in it for the points, if not the overall win...but that's another story.
Sure, I'd like to see F1 be an all-out, technological
tour-de-force. But the fact remains that auto racing, doesn't provide much in the way of technological support to road-going cars, with the exception of a handful of high-priced, limited-production cars that are impractical in most types of real-world driving conditions, save track days. If Grand Prix cars could have less restrictions on speeds, cornering, design, et cetera, then it is quite possible you'll be stuck with four cars left on the grid to vie for three podium positions. The McLaren-RedBull-Honda-Mercedes-Renault partnership would field two drivers in cars that might get their drivers fired during qualifying for running over a curb; lest they damage an underbody winglet that costs $7.5 million, since it had to spend lots of R&D time in 5 wind tunnels during the past week. However, the Ferrari-BMW-Spyker-Shadow-Super Aguri would issue a spy satellite to see what the competition was driving, and would intercept the telemetry of the other team in real-time. Stirling Moss would be shaking his head, that's for sure.
An all-out, no rules series was once created: Group 7 [wikipedia]Can-Am[/wikipedia]. The cars had no engine nor weight limits, no aerodynamic limits, just 2-seat sports-car, closed-wheel designs. And McLaren ran away with whole thing with the M6/M8 for 4 years until Porsche dominated them in return with the 917s. After 1974, it turned into a series in which old
Indy and
F1-car designs went into
diabetic comas by the hands of
shade-tree bodyshop repairmen.
