A Formula 1 rear wing can produce over 500kg of downforce and help the cars corner at over 5G, but not that long ago they were nearly removed from F1 altogether.
Scott Mansell, founder of Driver 61 and F1 expert Craig Scarborough go through how we went from this to this and now to the current wings. And also how we ended up with some of the really crazy ones.
We’re very used to rear wings in F1, but back in the early days – things were very different. During the 1950s and most of the 1960s, F1 cars didn’t have any wings.
They were very streamlined and focused on straight-line speed – so designers focused on making them great at slipstreaming.
Although they didn’t focus on downforce, engineers did have to reduce lift. Something that road car engineers have to do now – as the flat bottom, rounded top of cars can lead to them creating lift like a wing.
— see video above —
