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Flying upside down 💸

I read that a car jumped off the ground while travelling in a straight line during testing in Spain. Everyone has been having some bounce but that's a bit extreme. There's a weird chain of cause and effect to get here.

From the 1970s, teams tried using airflow under the car to suck it downwards (called the ground effect)
It helps you take corners faster
But if the airflow is disrupted, the downforce suddenly disappears, and you crash
So (since the 80s) car undersides had to be flat
So to get downforce you needed better wings
But the wings needed smooth airflow to work properly
And when you got close to another car, its turbulence reduced your downforce
So you slid more and ruined your tyres
So close racing was too difficult
This year's rules are meant to fix this by reducing reliance on wings
But they do it by allowing ground effect again
And at high speed, the ground effect is more... effective
So the car gets squished very close to the ground
This disrupts the airflow and the downforce suddenly disappears
The car bounces up, restoring airflow and downforce
This pushes the car down again
Rinse and repeat.

So cars are bouncing down the straights, sometimes a bit alarmingly. So far, no one has had a problem in a corner and had a big crash.

Some people are excited about how the cars differ from each other this year. I'm not so sure. There are some variations in body shape, but they're not spectacular. I wonder how different the undersides are. If someone flips, will we discover secrets?

#F1

#GroundEffect

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