Discussion
What you care about is, broadly speaking 4 things:
1) Total frontal area (generally fixed by the regulations)
2) Maintaining a suitable area rule along the longitudinal axis of the vehicle
3) Getting the highest pressure recovery at the rear of the vehicle
4) Making your downforce elements have the highest downforce to drag ratio possible
In general, with aerodynamics, what it looks like is pretty irrelevant! (Hence why you need a full scale moving road wind tunnel to really get it right (although 3d fluid dynamics simulation has made big inroads into getting initial layouts pretty close to optimum)
1) Total frontal area (generally fixed by the regulations)
2) Maintaining a suitable area rule along the longitudinal axis of the vehicle
3) Getting the highest pressure recovery at the rear of the vehicle
4) Making your downforce elements have the highest downforce to drag ratio possible
In general, with aerodynamics, what it looks like is pretty irrelevant! (Hence why you need a full scale moving road wind tunnel to really get it right (although 3d fluid dynamics simulation has made big inroads into getting initial layouts pretty close to optimum)
Believe there are two other important issues missed:
1. Recover a level of under wheel arch downforce previously generated until WEC introduced mandatory "holes" above all four wheels.
2. Improved platform for even bigger/better headlights - those headlights really turn the 8 hrs of night into day and improved visibility allowed the Porsche to lap faster in continuous traffic during the cool of the night.
Only my guess...
1. Recover a level of under wheel arch downforce previously generated until WEC introduced mandatory "holes" above all four wheels.
2. Improved platform for even bigger/better headlights - those headlights really turn the 8 hrs of night into day and improved visibility allowed the Porsche to lap faster in continuous traffic during the cool of the night.
Only my guess...
In real life they are not as ugly as they look in pictures. The lights are very impressive in the dark on both the Porsche and Audi. I suspect the regs have raised the height to improve the distance they light up down the Mullsane. Cars in the museum have lights down by the splitter.
Paul
Paul
In real life they are not as ugly as they look in pictures. The lights are very impressive in the dark on both the Porsche and Audi. I suspect the regs have raised the height to improve the distance they light up down the Mullsane. Cars in the museum have lights down by the splitter.
Paul
Paul
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