Awww yes, something left up to video games at the moment. The Newey designed Red Bull X1. It has a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 engine developing 1,483bhp and 527lb ft of torque, weighs just 545kg, revs to 15,000rpm, and has a theoretical top speed of near 300mph. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Ahh, yeah, but it doesn't have sticky-out wheels! Adrian & his fellow aero geeks would love nothing more than getting 'em out of the airstream - Open wheels *suck* from an aero perspective. Cheers, Ian
Yeah that was something that they had mentioned quite a bit when "developing" that car....I find it very interesting that said aero devices to cover up wheels act like vacuums sucking the car to the ground. That works great on a hypothetical simulation, but doesn't seem that practical.
I'm not sure, but believe it's more about reducing lift (& drag of course) than actually generating downforce from the "wheel wells". I believe Ferrari are exiting air from within the wells on their current road cars for example, but I think it's for drag reduction rather than downforce. Look at any F1 car, from any era, from directly in front and the wheels/tires are basically huge bricks (that rotate "the wrong way") - There's nothing that they can do about it other than try and direct as much air away from 'em as possible. Also one of the reasons our WW2 cars could go so fast in a straight line - Skinny little tires create way less drag........ Cheers, Ian
