Just because a team is not based in the UK doesn’t mean the UK still isn’t/wasn’t leading things. It’s a pretty incestuous industry. Just because you move from one team to another, and alot of people do, it doesn’t mean you have suddenly unlearned what you’ve learned from the experience and knowledge you gained from the previous team, even if the rules say you have to forget.
Ferrari had won diddly squat for about 26 years or so till Schumacher and team Brawn pitched up, and then they were instantly transformed until……they all left and Ferrari are facing a future in the doldrums yet again. How the mighty fall.
Although the future for a UK dominated F1 looks bleak as it is becoming more and more corporate orientated where an individuals knowledge is less valued. F1 has previously thrived on the ingenuity of a plucky risk-taking engineer-lead individual. The future won’t be the same as corporate rights to IP and technology become the most important thing to them. It’s already become sanitised and will continue to become more and more sanitised. F1 as I remember it is dead. The irony is that we’re probably seeing the best F1 driver the sport has ever seen in Hamilton (arguably obviously), but in it’s most boring and driver levelling heights.