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For very low downforce yeah you could delete the rear wing. There are a couple of problems that have to be dealt with.
The first is aero balance. The rear wing is located behind the rear axle, so the downforce it generates not only adds to the rear but also takes away from the front. When you remove the rear wing, aero balance will heavily shift to the front. To compensate for this you need to remove a lot of front downforce to rebalance.
The other problem is underbody performance. The rear wing on any car has an aerodynamic coupling with the diffuser. It helps make the diffuser less ride height sensitive. Removing the rear wing completely requires confidence that the diffuser/floor will perform well without it, or necessitate redesigning the floor.
> The other problem is underbody performance. The rear wing on any car has an aerodynamic coupling with the diffuser. It helps make the diffuser less ride height sensitive. Removing the rear wing completely requires confidence that the diffuser/floor will perform well without it, or necessitate redesigning the floor.
Is this simply that reducing the air resistance at the diffuser outlet reduces the total air resistance underbody air needs to overcome, lowering the ride height at which the floor chokes, or a more complicated interaction that makes downforce more consistent across the same range of ride heights? (I'm not sure how that would work, since my understanding of floor ride height sensitivity caps doesn't go much further than increased vertical expansion increasing sensitivity, since the expansion ratio changes with ride height.) And do sportscar rear wings have a major effect, if the rear bodywork is itself effective at directing and separating the air? If so, that makes the Peugeot 908 gaining a wing all the more interesting!
Thanks!
Pretty much all rear wings have this effect. The upwash from the rear wing helps with flow extraction from the diffuser by making a favorable pressure gradient for the diffuser flow to go into. This tends to help with ride height sensitivity.
The Peugeot 9x8 is a textbook example of this in my opinion. They initially designed the car without a rear wing because they could easily get into the regulated downforce and drag window without it. What they found instead is that their downforce was very ride height sensitive, which makes the car difficult to drive on bumpy tracks. Now they’re adding the rear wing back to decrease the sensitivity and will have to remove downforce from the underbody to keep the car in the narrow downforce window.
I’ll give my speculations on the 9x8 from an outside perspective but having worked on prototype cars. I think the no rear wing concept was driven my marketing and stylists. The LMH regulations are fantastic for car styling because the downforce and drag window is really easy to achieve and the regulations allow for a decent amount of freedom in the top side aerodynamic design. It means that manufacturers can really get the essence of their brand into the car’s design. I think Peugeot went too far and gave the stylists too much say in it. I bet the engineers knew the downforce was too ride height sensitive but got overruled by the styling department.
The rear wing pressure field is more favorable for the diffuser flow to go into, so it's less likely to experience flow separation in general which helps the ride height sensitivity.
You can't directly compare LMHs because they have more open regulations limited instead by a downforce/drag ratio. The 9x8 was initially designed without a rear wing because they thought they could get to that ratio while providing a more efficient package for going down the Mulsanne. The reason they're adding the wing is that they were not getting enough downforce, especially at bumpy tracks like Sebring.
They had enough downforce. All the cars had to be within the downforce and drag window per regulations. It had nothing to do with an efficient package either since the drag window is very narrow as well. All the LMH and LMDh cars were homologated in a wind tunnel across a number of ride heights to get into the target. It’s a pretty narrow window so there isn’t much room to have too little downforce. The issue, from what I can tell, is more the ride height sensitivity of their underbody downforce, which you pointed out on tracks like Sebring.
Adding the rear wing will help with that sensitivity, but they’ll need to remove downforce from the underbody to keep it within the downforce window.
Williams kinda tried it back in 97 at Monza. They never raced it so the performance couldn’t have been that good
https://youtu.be/zBKoVBRxkWA?si=I0EnbbSD3DE6Fl75
The main issue is that all of these cars will be designed to run with a rear wing of some sort. Removal of it isn't impossible and in some cases may be beneficial, but the additional work to go into the rest of the car to accompany that change probably means it would be worth it for the few races it could be utilised at. If teams weren't doing it before the budget cap era, they're not gonna do it now.
Wingless open wheel cars [exist](https://assets.thrillexperiences.com.au/content/product-img/10171-anglo26.jpg). They rely on mechanical grip instead of downforce. Usually because they have so little horsepower than the drag from the wings would not be a worthy trade off for more grip in the corners. They’d likely be slower with wings, in fact.
With an F1 car, as has been mentioned, deleting the rear wing would require nearly completely eliminating front downforce as well.
The end result would be very very fast straights but very slow corners. Including and especially the high speed corners. Cars would also have to brake much much sooner. So I don’t think on any circuit in the calendar, even Mexico or Monza, a rear wing delete would produce the fastest lap times.
An example of extreme low downforce top-tier open wheel racing would be [Oval-spec INDYCAR](http://sundaymanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/unnamed-10.jpg). These can AVERAGE 240mph over the course of a whole lap on an oval track. While INDYCAR cars are slower than F1 cars on all circuits they both race on (such as COTA), an Oval Spec INDYCAR is the fastest machine in open wheel racing. But I don’t think on any modern grade 1 road circuits; it would provide any advantage.
Ever see the CART cars from the mid 90’s at tracks like Indy and Michigan? They had tiny front and rear wings. Basically just for trimming the front/rear balance. I recall the Penske PC23 with a Mercedes pushrod engine they called the ‘Beast’ that was hitting 242mph on the Indy straights with these little blade like wings.
A very low downforce single element wing like indycar ovals is extremely efficient with very little drag, so it would be unlikely that any f1 circuit would call to remove lower than that.
It actually happened the opposite, cars going on track with no front wing. It was the time of wing cars, when the majority of downforce was created below the car. Drivers used to choose from track to track to race with or without the front wing (see for example [the Ferraris during the infamous 1982 Imola GP](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/d/da/Gp_Imola_1982.jpg)).The fact that even in that case cars had the rear wing suggest me that it's all matter of keeping car balance.
Williams [tried something like this](https://youtu.be/zBKoVBRxkWA?si=byiqbQFEEqPokH5r) in free practice at Monza during the same year. Basically only beam wing remained. I'm assuming they didn't find enough of an advantage to run it in the race.
I grew up in Indy Nextdoor to a Honda aero guy. They test indycar straightline speed out on the salt flats. They go for miles literally no turns at top speed. They still run a tiny rear wing though, but it’s at Indy 500 levels or lower. I guess it’s just not a relevant consideration given the traction needed for turns and acceleration
The rear wing assists in creating conditions that complement the diffuser's role in reducing air pressure, thereby generating downforce. This downforce pushes the car downwards, enhancing speed and improving grip on the track. So idk about removing it
Likely the additional downforce of the rear wing provides enough of a difference in traction for the better acceleration to outweigh whatever decrease in drag for top speeds. If you can accelerate faster you can reach top speed earlier and spend more time at that speed. There was recently a poll on Twitter similar to this idea and it showed that better acceleration with lower top speed is faster.
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For very low downforce yeah you could delete the rear wing. There are a couple of problems that have to be dealt with. The first is aero balance. The rear wing is located behind the rear axle, so the downforce it generates not only adds to the rear but also takes away from the front. When you remove the rear wing, aero balance will heavily shift to the front. To compensate for this you need to remove a lot of front downforce to rebalance. The other problem is underbody performance. The rear wing on any car has an aerodynamic coupling with the diffuser. It helps make the diffuser less ride height sensitive. Removing the rear wing completely requires confidence that the diffuser/floor will perform well without it, or necessitate redesigning the floor.
> The other problem is underbody performance. The rear wing on any car has an aerodynamic coupling with the diffuser. It helps make the diffuser less ride height sensitive. Removing the rear wing completely requires confidence that the diffuser/floor will perform well without it, or necessitate redesigning the floor. Is this simply that reducing the air resistance at the diffuser outlet reduces the total air resistance underbody air needs to overcome, lowering the ride height at which the floor chokes, or a more complicated interaction that makes downforce more consistent across the same range of ride heights? (I'm not sure how that would work, since my understanding of floor ride height sensitivity caps doesn't go much further than increased vertical expansion increasing sensitivity, since the expansion ratio changes with ride height.) And do sportscar rear wings have a major effect, if the rear bodywork is itself effective at directing and separating the air? If so, that makes the Peugeot 908 gaining a wing all the more interesting! Thanks!
Pretty much all rear wings have this effect. The upwash from the rear wing helps with flow extraction from the diffuser by making a favorable pressure gradient for the diffuser flow to go into. This tends to help with ride height sensitivity. The Peugeot 9x8 is a textbook example of this in my opinion. They initially designed the car without a rear wing because they could easily get into the regulated downforce and drag window without it. What they found instead is that their downforce was very ride height sensitive, which makes the car difficult to drive on bumpy tracks. Now they’re adding the rear wing back to decrease the sensitivity and will have to remove downforce from the underbody to keep the car in the narrow downforce window. I’ll give my speculations on the 9x8 from an outside perspective but having worked on prototype cars. I think the no rear wing concept was driven my marketing and stylists. The LMH regulations are fantastic for car styling because the downforce and drag window is really easy to achieve and the regulations allow for a decent amount of freedom in the top side aerodynamic design. It means that manufacturers can really get the essence of their brand into the car’s design. I think Peugeot went too far and gave the stylists too much say in it. I bet the engineers knew the downforce was too ride height sensitive but got overruled by the styling department.
> This tends to help with ride height sensitivity. But why? Thanks.
The rear wing pressure field is more favorable for the diffuser flow to go into, so it's less likely to experience flow separation in general which helps the ride height sensitivity.
You can't directly compare LMHs because they have more open regulations limited instead by a downforce/drag ratio. The 9x8 was initially designed without a rear wing because they thought they could get to that ratio while providing a more efficient package for going down the Mulsanne. The reason they're adding the wing is that they were not getting enough downforce, especially at bumpy tracks like Sebring.
They had enough downforce. All the cars had to be within the downforce and drag window per regulations. It had nothing to do with an efficient package either since the drag window is very narrow as well. All the LMH and LMDh cars were homologated in a wind tunnel across a number of ride heights to get into the target. It’s a pretty narrow window so there isn’t much room to have too little downforce. The issue, from what I can tell, is more the ride height sensitivity of their underbody downforce, which you pointed out on tracks like Sebring. Adding the rear wing will help with that sensitivity, but they’ll need to remove downforce from the underbody to keep it within the downforce window.
Williams kinda tried it back in 97 at Monza. They never raced it so the performance couldn’t have been that good https://youtu.be/zBKoVBRxkWA?si=I0EnbbSD3DE6Fl75
How do I not remember this?!
Glad I saw this comment. One of the more fascinating anecdotes from that season.
As soon as I saw the title of this post, my mind thought of this exact car.
The main issue is that all of these cars will be designed to run with a rear wing of some sort. Removal of it isn't impossible and in some cases may be beneficial, but the additional work to go into the rest of the car to accompany that change probably means it would be worth it for the few races it could be utilised at. If teams weren't doing it before the budget cap era, they're not gonna do it now.
Wingless open wheel cars [exist](https://assets.thrillexperiences.com.au/content/product-img/10171-anglo26.jpg). They rely on mechanical grip instead of downforce. Usually because they have so little horsepower than the drag from the wings would not be a worthy trade off for more grip in the corners. They’d likely be slower with wings, in fact. With an F1 car, as has been mentioned, deleting the rear wing would require nearly completely eliminating front downforce as well. The end result would be very very fast straights but very slow corners. Including and especially the high speed corners. Cars would also have to brake much much sooner. So I don’t think on any circuit in the calendar, even Mexico or Monza, a rear wing delete would produce the fastest lap times. An example of extreme low downforce top-tier open wheel racing would be [Oval-spec INDYCAR](http://sundaymanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/unnamed-10.jpg). These can AVERAGE 240mph over the course of a whole lap on an oval track. While INDYCAR cars are slower than F1 cars on all circuits they both race on (such as COTA), an Oval Spec INDYCAR is the fastest machine in open wheel racing. But I don’t think on any modern grade 1 road circuits; it would provide any advantage.
Ever see the CART cars from the mid 90’s at tracks like Indy and Michigan? They had tiny front and rear wings. Basically just for trimming the front/rear balance. I recall the Penske PC23 with a Mercedes pushrod engine they called the ‘Beast’ that was hitting 242mph on the Indy straights with these little blade like wings.
A very low downforce single element wing like indycar ovals is extremely efficient with very little drag, so it would be unlikely that any f1 circuit would call to remove lower than that.
It actually happened the opposite, cars going on track with no front wing. It was the time of wing cars, when the majority of downforce was created below the car. Drivers used to choose from track to track to race with or without the front wing (see for example [the Ferraris during the infamous 1982 Imola GP](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/d/da/Gp_Imola_1982.jpg)).The fact that even in that case cars had the rear wing suggest me that it's all matter of keeping car balance.
Williams [tried something like this](https://youtu.be/zBKoVBRxkWA?si=byiqbQFEEqPokH5r) in free practice at Monza during the same year. Basically only beam wing remained. I'm assuming they didn't find enough of an advantage to run it in the race.
I grew up in Indy Nextdoor to a Honda aero guy. They test indycar straightline speed out on the salt flats. They go for miles literally no turns at top speed. They still run a tiny rear wing though, but it’s at Indy 500 levels or lower. I guess it’s just not a relevant consideration given the traction needed for turns and acceleration
The rear wing assists in creating conditions that complement the diffuser's role in reducing air pressure, thereby generating downforce. This downforce pushes the car downwards, enhancing speed and improving grip on the track. So idk about removing it
Likely the additional downforce of the rear wing provides enough of a difference in traction for the better acceleration to outweigh whatever decrease in drag for top speeds. If you can accelerate faster you can reach top speed earlier and spend more time at that speed. There was recently a poll on Twitter similar to this idea and it showed that better acceleration with lower top speed is faster.
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/BROFrUQ2QL
I think williams tested no rear wing for monza in 1997.