I’m really interested to see how this works out too. Agreed it seems like it would briefly add more drag than other systems and presumably this provide some amount of lift upside down which seems counterproductive.
My super armchair thoughts are that the wing element inverted provides a similar ish amount of up force as it used to downforce. Lighter rear makes the car less stable (no problem on the straight) and less draggy. The former down force doesn’t necessarily go to the front, cuz a lot of the force was from the aero, and it’s reverse acting more.
I think it’ll act as though the car is overall lighter with this, but of course the deployment takes a little time so it has to be worth it. Neat idea either way.
The lightening rear is an interesting thought. It would take some pressure off the rear tires, shrinking their contact patch a bit and reducing rolling resistance down a straight (I think). It could have potential tire wear benefits (in the rear). It may even effectively increase the diameter of the rear wheels a small amount (at peak speed since they wouldn’t have so large of a flat contact patch), effectively being a nano-CVT adding a little top speed. The effect would likely be very small, but measurable.
Consider the rake of a car where you want the nose lower than the tail to cut through air on straights. Now put a wing that lifts the tail and presses the nose down.
Great point! I hadn’t considered the rake. It still seems like having a high rake (which increases downforce) fighting an inverse wing (reducing downforce) would increase drag more than anything else though.
I’m really interested to see how this works out too. Agreed it seems like it would briefly add more drag than other systems and presumably this provide some amount of lift upside down which seems counterproductive.
My super armchair thoughts are that the wing element inverted provides a similar ish amount of up force as it used to downforce. Lighter rear makes the car less stable (no problem on the straight) and less draggy. The former down force doesn’t necessarily go to the front, cuz a lot of the force was from the aero, and it’s reverse acting more.
I think it’ll act as though the car is overall lighter with this, but of course the deployment takes a little time so it has to be worth it. Neat idea either way.
Also again not an expert at all
The lightening rear is an interesting thought. It would take some pressure off the rear tires, shrinking their contact patch a bit and reducing rolling resistance down a straight (I think). It could have potential tire wear benefits (in the rear). It may even effectively increase the diameter of the rear wheels a small amount (at peak speed since they wouldn’t have so large of a flat contact patch), effectively being a nano-CVT adding a little top speed. The effect would likely be very small, but measurable.
Consider the rake of a car where you want the nose lower than the tail to cut through air on straights. Now put a wing that lifts the tail and presses the nose down.
Great point! I hadn’t considered the rake. It still seems like having a high rake (which increases downforce) fighting an inverse wing (reducing downforce) would increase drag more than anything else though.