Modern Formula One cars have as much in common with a jet fighter as they do with ordinary road cars. Nope, that isn’t a joke.

Aerodynamics have become vital to achieving meaningful success in the sport and teams spend hundreds of millions of pounds on research, development and analysis of aerodynamics each year.

The designer of the aerodynamic package has two concerns – the creation of downforce, which helps to push the tyres of the car onto the track and improve the optimum cornering speed; and minimising the drag that is caused by turbulence and acts to slow the car down, something similar to the many years of research spent on stopping aeroplanes creating vortices at the edge of the wings. F1 teams began to experiment with the wings in the late ’60s. Racing car wings operate on exactly the same kind of principle as aircraft wings, but in reverse.

Air flows at varying speeds over the two sides of the wing (by having to travel varying distances over its contours) and this then creates a significant difference in air pressure, a physical rule known as Bernoulli’s Principle.

As this pressure tries to balance, the wing attempts to move in the direction of the low pressure to try and cancel the effect of the pressure. Planes use their wings to create lift to help them get off the ground; racing cars use theirs to create downforce to keep the car on the track.

A modern Formula One car is now capable of developing a staggering 4.5 g lateral cornering force (four and a half times its own weight) thanks to aerodynamic downforce. That means that, theoretically, at high speeds they could drive upside down, I bet nobody is brave enough to try it though.

Early experiments with movable wings and high wing mountings led to some horrific accidents, after which safety concerns over the need for speed as cars got heavier and heavier, and for the 1970 Formula One season, regulations were introduced to limit the size and location of wings. Some of these rules still resonate in current regulations. By the mid ’70s, “ground effect” downforce had been discovered, a discovery that would change the understanding of downforce eternally. Lotus engineers realised that the entire car could be made to act like a wing by the creating a giant wing on its underside which would help to suck it to the road.

The perfect example of this theory was the Brabham BT46B, designed by car design God Gordon Murray who designed the legendary McLaren MP4/4, which actually used a cooling fan to extract air from the skirted area under the car, creating astonishing amount of downforce not even matched today. That sounds mad even by today’s double diffuser standards.

After technical challenges from other teams (yup, they kicked up a fuss that long ago as well) it was withdrawn after just one race. Rule changes then followed to try and limit the benefits of “ground effects”—first came a ban on the skirts used by the teams to contain the low pressure area, later a requirement for a “stepped floor.”

Despite the expensive full-sized wind tunnels and ridiculously vast computing power used by the aerodynamic departments of the vast majority of teams (boffins), the fundamental principles of Formula One aerodynamics still apply – to create the maximum amount of downforce for the minimal amount of drag.

The front and rear wings are fitted with different profiles and settings depending on the downforce requirements of a particular track. Tight, slow and short circuits like Monaco require the most aggressive wing profiles—eagle-eyed fans will have noticed that the cars run two separate blades of elements on the rear wings (two is the maximum permitted).

In contrast, high-speed circuits like Monza see the cars stripped of as much wing as possible, to reduce drag and increase speed on the long straights. This makes the car very slippery and difficult to hold onto in corner like Ascari and the Lesmos’.

Every single little surface of a modern Formula One car, from the angle of the suspension links to that of the driver’s helmet, has its aerodynamic effects considered.

Disturbed air, where the flow “separates” from the body, creates turbulence which then creates drag—which slows the car down, as mentioned previously. Look at any recent car, apart from a 2007/08 Honda, and you will notice that almost as much effort, and money, has been spent reducing drag as increasing downforce – from the vertical end-plates fitted to the wings to prevent vortices forming, to the diffuser plates mounted low at the back, which help to re-equalise pressure of the faster-flowing air that has passed under the car and would otherwise create a low-pressure ‘balloon’ dragging at the back.

Despite this, designers can’t make their cars too “slippery,” as a good supply of airflow has to be ensured to help dissipate the vast amounts of heat produced by a modern Formula One engine. A slippery car is difficult to control difficult to drive fast and is therefore slower, despite whatever aids there may be.

In recent years, the vast majority of Formula One teams have tried to emulate Ferrari’s “narrow waist” design, where the rear of the car is made as narrow and low as is physically possible. This reduces drag and maximises the amount of air available to the rear wing. The ‘barge boards’ fitted to the sides of cars also helped to shape the flow of the air and minimise the amount of turbulence.

Ferrari’s unique approach to aerodynamic and technical design brought them five consecutive drivers’ championships, and six consecutive constructors’ championships. They created two phenomenally dominant Formula One cars, the F2002 and the F2004. Both cars adopted the “narrow and low” design language and exploited it to its full potential, often dominating races and entire seasons.

New technical regulations were introduced in 2005, and they forced the aerodynamicists to be even more ingenious (imagine how sore their heads were from all of that thinking).

In a bid to cut speeds, the FIA robbed the cars of a huge chunk of downforce by raising the front wing, bringing the rear wing forward and modifying the profile of the rear diffuser, the boring gits. The designers quickly clawed back much of the loss, with a variety of intricate and novel solutions such as the horn winglets first seen on the McLaren MP4-20.This infuriated the FIA, so they then introduced the stupid “one-tyre only” rule per race to make the cars slower, and unfortunately for us, it worked.

Most of those innovations were effectively outlawed under the even more stringent aerodynamic regulations imposed by the FIA for 2009.

The changes were designed to promote overtaking by making it easier for a car to closely follow another. They can follow closer, but the drivers must still be significantly faster than the other car, or have KERS ready to use, which the vast majority of the driver do not.

The new rules take the cars into another new era, as if we needed it after the brilliant 2008 season; with lower and wider front wings, taller and narrower rear wings, and generally much “cleaner” bodywork.

The FIA thought they had succeeded in making the cars slower, but again, they failed, the teams managed to make the even faster than last season, with Brawn, Williams and Toyota innovating the phenomenal double-decker diffusers, entailing a whole new understanding of aerodynamics. Well, we now come to the end of the aerodynamics section of the “Understanding Formula One” series Source: bleacher report