New Scientist is carrying this article summarizing a new and innovative idea about using evolutionary science to make F-1 cars go faster:

The team started with a population of randomly chosen tuning configurations, each of which was tested on two virtual tracks.

Recombination and mutation of the best 40 per cent were then used to come up with the next generation, some of which were faster still around the track. Eventually their system evolved configurations that consistently broke track records.

They had to use a game/sim, but considering the high fidelity of those the results should translate. Some of the back markers don't have much to lose, so I wouldn't be surprised if this tech ended up at, say, Sauber or Toyota.