PARAGRAPH: If you have ever watched a Grand Prix, you may have asked yourself, ‘how do
Formula One cars generate downforce ?’
Motorsports is all about speed. Being the fastest around will mean victory. But there is a limit to how fast one can travel on the ground without the car taking off. For attaining great speeds a car needs to remain firmly on the ground and have a good grip on the racing track. This means that all cars need to generate a downward force sufficient enough to keep them firmly on the ground for the speed that they intend to attain.
One way to remain on the ground at great speeds is to increase the weight of the car. But an increased weight will need more power to drive the car and make the handling of the car difficult. The alternative to this is to create the required force to stay grounded. Downforce can be generated from the air flowing around the car and will increase as the speed of the car increases.
The wings of an aeroplane help it to take off in the air at a specified speed. The same wing, if installed inverted on a car can make the car stay firmly on the ground. Just like in an aeroplane, as the speed of the car increases, the wings will press the car more firmly on the ground, thereby making handling of the car through twists and turns easier at high speed. This force that presses the car to the ground is called downforce.
Aerodynamic downforce plays an important role in the performance of Formula One cars, DTM, Indy cars and touring cars. Good grip on the racing track is equally important as the power generated by a racing car engine. Good ground adhesion gives the car stability and better cornering ability. Hence a racing car must generate a ground force equal to several times its weight.
Modern Formula One cars can generate as much as 5G downforce. That means, at full speed, the effective weight pressing down on the track will be 5 times the weight of the car. Almost all the surfaces of a Formula One car are engineered to produce downforce. The downforce by the front portion of the car has to be balanced by the downforce produced by the rear portion.
While the downforce on either side of the car can be balanced by symmetry, the downforce between the front and the rear cannot. This downforce has to be balanced by design. Most of the downforce in Formula One cars is produced by the wings and by diffusers. The downforce required by the car for ultimate performance will vary from track to track and on the conditions of the track.
While too much front downforce could lead to understeer, too much downforce generated by the rear portion could lead to oversteer. The balancing of the downforce between the front and the rear can be done by careful designing of the body parts of the car. The balancing act of the downforce also comes with an increased drag on the car.
