The air pressure that surrounds an object when it moves at a high speed creates ‘downforce’ or an increased weight on it. While downforce increases the grip and speed around corners, in the case of NASCAR cars, there’s a tradeoff to it as well. A big amount of downforce parallelly shoots up the drag, which brings down speed on straight lanes.
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In simple terms, downforce is the force that is created when gravity and air pressure work together to increase the stability of a car by pushing it downward. In NASCAR, the more the downforce, the less the chance that a car gets up in the air when it is contacted by an external object. A constant ask from drivers to their team’s engineers is more downforce in the corners.
This just translates to maximum grip and speed in the turns.
Teams can adjust the downforce on their cars depending on what kind of track a particular race is on. In road courses where there are more turns and corners than straightways, teams could opt to create as much downforce as possible by adjusting components like the rear wing and the front splitter.
High-speed ovals, however, require different techniques since there are few corners.
How much downforce does a NASCAR car produce?
There are two kinds of downforce that a NASCAR car experiences: mechanical and aerodynamical. The mechanical downforce is directly related to the weight of the car and the driver. As per NASCAR mandates, a car in the Cup Series along with its driver must weigh a minimum of 3,665 pounds. How this 3,665 pounds of downforce is split between the four tires varies based on the conditions of the track and the car.
Aerodynamic downforce depends on the speed of the car. The greater the speed, the more the downforce. Drag is an aerodynamic force like downforce. Downforce pushes the car down, while drag slows it down by working opposite to the car’s direction. According to Dr. Eric Jacuzzi from North Carolina State University, a NASCAR car moving at 180 miles per hour has 9 times more downforce than a car at 60 miles per hour.
For a car that weighs 3,665 pounds and travels at 200 miles per hour, the downforce on it is 5,664 pounds (Mechanical – 3,665 lbs, Aerodynamical – 2,000 lbs). Both the aerodynamic forces depend quadratically on speed.
Tire pressures are altered depending on the anticipated downforce so that they can bear the brunt of the added weight.
