Early view of 2017 Williams

[Vaud]

I think the worried about ground effect - in that when it fails it fails catastrophically - and that with modern technology the cornering speeds could outstrip the drivers physical abilities?

I forget where I read that?

[Eric Mc]

Probably here.

Controlling all the downforce from under the car causes problems. You lose the drag caused by wings but, as you say, if you lose downforce for any reason from under the car (ride a kerb, damage a sidepod etc), the loss is sudden and dramatic and off you shoot.

Lotus also found with the 80 suffered from severe porpoising, due to the downforce coming and going as the car pitched and squatted, especially under braking and acceleration.

Modern cars would probably be a lot more stable and without wings they would almost be impossibly fast..

[Evangelion]

And they're not impossibly fast now WITH wings?

[Vaud]

Evangelion said:

And they're not impossibly fast now WITH wings?

I think it's more that ground effect is more easily disrupted - the skirts don't have to fail, you just need to have disrupted the connection with the ground for the failure to happen.

With wing,at least if you just run onto a significant kerb you still have the downforce?

[Evangelion]

This is true, but bear in mind that the last time skirts were used was 35 years ago. I wonder if today's technology (in other words computer control) could come up with a skirt that follows the gap between the underside of the car and the road surface with greater accuracy.

Oh, hang on a minute, they'd ban it wouldn't they.

[DoubleD]

I like F1 cars with wings.

[dr_gn]

Evangelion said:

This is true, but bear in mind that the last time skirts were used was 35 years ago. I wonder if today's technology (in other words computer control) could come up with a skirt that follows the gap between the underside of the car and the road surface with greater accuracy.

Oh, hang on a minute, they'd ban it wouldn't they.

It's not just the skirt-ground contact, it's bottoming out that can partially or completely stall the diffuser and cause a huge accident. I assume the only way of effectively dealing with those extreme cases is with active suspension.