Whats the funda about AERODYNAMICS and TRACTION in F-1 cars ??

Question

Whats the funda about AERODYNAMICS and TRACTION in F-1 cars ??

Answer 1

at 100 miles an hour an f1 car could drive across a ceiling without falling off!

Answer 2

christos has the physics right.

Both these things are subject to regulation in F1, and they are usually in the rumour mill of F1, traction control was recently legalised, then more recently banned, aerodynamics are always limited to regs.

When F1 goes back to slick tyres in 2009, this will increase the mechanical traction of the cars, keeping things simple, allowing them to go faster. Another idea is to reduce the amount of downforce generated by aerodynamics to allow the cars to race closer to each other without being hampered by the turbulent air caused by the leading car's aerodynamic wings.

Answer 3

A car (moving object) has mass and therefore has inertia.

Inertia means that a moving object would rather not change speed or direction so a force must be applied to it for any of this to happen.

Cars rely on traction from  their tires to change their speed and direction.

If you double the weight of a car you'll get lots more traction from the tires because it's pushed down to the ground twice as hard.

Unfortunately inertia doubles and this overcomes the increased traction, so it corners slower rather than faster.

But what if we could make a car weigh twice as much and push it's tires to the ground twice as hard with no increase in inertia?

That sounds great but how do we do it?

Here's where aerodynamics come in.

A winged formula going through the air at very high speed generates downforce.

A force that pushes the car down hard increasing it's weight greatly.

But the beauty of it is that the car's inertia does not change because it's overall mass is exactly the same.

An F1 car can weigh as much as 2 tonnes at full speed and high downforce settings but it's mass is always the same, around 600 Kgs plus fuel.

So it generates incredible traction in the corners and on the brakes but is very light which means the traction available easily overcomes the car's inertia allowing for rapid changes in speed and direction.

The downside of all this is increased drag but that's actually a good thing, it helps control speeds down the straights.

Answer 4

explaining everything would probably take up a few pages at the least. i will try to make it simple

aerodynamics- air is a fluid and it tries to block motion. the cars are designed to "cut" thru air so that it offers least resistance.

traction- traction is basically another word for grip of the tyres