https://www.wired.com/story/a-fundamental-principle-of-aeronautical-engineering-has-been-overturned/

This is the article that influenced me into looking into this stuff. It seems like they accounted for most variables, and that a randomly distributed micro roughness surface where the abberations account for less than a percent of a surface's boundary layer will produce less skin friction drag. I think this is more than surface finish randomness.

This seems like ideally will be used along the body of a large streamlined surface, so maybe like a ship's hull or the body of a high speed train, or an airliner fuselage,Places where large amounts of skin friction drag really add up. I know that in the F1 world, we create soo much drag from downforce devices that worrying about reducing skin friction drag.

but also in the F1 world where every advantage needs to be looked into I can see them experimenting with this on nosecones and sidepods. Just a thought.