Flow field around the front wing of Formula One racing car model: BAR Honda 003 and MP4-21 under ground effect

Abstract

In Formula One racing, the front wing of a Formula One race car is crucial in generating downforce. Few types of front wings were introduced throughout the years. Two of them were the straight wing and the curved (U-shaped) wing. The difference in performance and flow structures between the two types of wings were experimentally investigated using scaled models with six-axes load cell, dye flow visualisation and PIV. Besides that, actual scaled wing model on track condition with moving ground was looked into using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The effect of ground clearance on the generation of downforce and drag for both wings were studied. In general, the straight wing performs better than the curved wing with larger downforce generation with a greater penalty in drag.