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I'm afraid I'm unable to provide any information on technology like this being used in F1 although it does seem like something teams would certainly use if possible.However, I'd like to help a bit with the understanding in relation to the skis and forces skis are subject to throughout the arc of a turn. I'm a ski instructor currently teaching in Italy and therefore hope I can shed some light on the area.
Simply put the forces a ski (or skier for that matter) is subject to increase throughout the turn.
At the initiation of a turn the skier will not be bending the ski much at all, there is a moment in any turn where the ski's are flat on the snow before the edges are engaged and the skier is able to exert force through the ski to start to bend it. As the skis progress through the turn the skier will manipulate the them by applying more pressure and therefore making them bend further. Around the apex of the turn the skier will then start to absorb some of the pressure that has built up within the skis by softening the legs, this will also absorb pressure created by the skis going across the fall-line and against gravity at this point. Around this point the skier will then start the next turn and the cycle repeats.
I believe the point at which the head skis are said to store energy is in the first half of the turn, as the ski is bent and then they should stiffen from around the apex of the turn. In practise this allows a softer ski (race skis are rock hard and beginners skis very soft) to have quite a punch at the end of the turn. I personally ski on a pair of KERS equipped heads and do find them bloody good skis. Do I believe all their marketing hype? No. But I do feel like the skis have impressive edge hold and punch for a soft ski that I can also teach beginners on.
I know that's a long post but I hope my ramblings help shine some light on some of the skiing side of things!
Nice post.
Surely the only way the skier can increase force on the ski in a turn is to first slide sideways to increase slip and then make the edge dig in to convert the slip to bending force.
There is nothing (other than the other ski) to purchase on to increase the force on the ski from anything else, unless you increase the effect of gravity using the terrain which is highly variable and would not give predictable energy recovery or energy application from storage (in theory).
I can see the benefit of a flexible but controllable ski in corner exit, used as a kind of rear ski spring effect.
I presume for racing skis they need to be more rigid to allow a more predictable corner entry and bite at high speed.
I still cannot see where there is sufficient energy in this system to make the rear section rigid though.
I think there might be a way to achieve it but not using piezoelectric crystals.
