It seems like this, but it actually not true. What's interesting in F1 is that you have to find the right balance between innovation and consistency.
James Vowles, current Williams TP ordered his team to "break everything" in order to improve and change: https://youtu.be/nYzwvTSffiY?t=3129
What is often forgotten is, that all F1 cars are prototypes, they NEED to constantly change and innovate, and every year it starts from the beginning (almost).
There is a fantastic book called Total Competition, which is a conversation between two ex-team principles, one of them Ross Brawn, probably most successful F1 engineer. In it, Brawn says: "But where I think Formula One is very strong is in the culture. If you wanted to develop a concept and to drive things forward at maximum pace, utilize it in Formula One. The composite companies love Formula One because we are willing to try things. If they’ve got a new resin system or a new type of fibre, they give it to the Formula One teams to explore for them, to look at the applications and come back with the feedback. If they put it in the aerospace industry, five years later they would have an answer. Put it into Formula One and five months later they have got an answer"
Apart from the many many times where a teams R&D department has come up with a radical new idea for a machine part which gives them an advantage, and then all the other teams copy it making it the new standard. This is how F1 has evolved forever, by taking risks and experimenting. Not by reliability and consistency!
