Aerodynamic Design and Performance Research of Racing Cars with Adaptive Control of Attitude

Aerodynamic forces acting on a racing car will impact its handling, stability, and steering characteristics. Oversteering typically occurs in racing cars with a significant front-end downforce. In the process of racing, the car’s attitude will change, causing a shift in the distribution of front and rear downforce. This, in turn, will impact the car’s handling performance. Therefore, in this study, a set of aerodynamic devices with attitude-adaptive function linked to the suspension is designed to reduce aerodynamic attitude sensitivity. The range of the car’s attitude changes, the adjustment ability of the front and rear flaps, and the reasonable matching relationship between different operating conditions and the attack angle of the front and rear flaps are confirmed. In this work, the matching relationship is achieved through the use of multiple groups of linkage mechanisms. The aerodynamic characteristics of the entire car are analyzed and simulated in the lap speed simulation. Results showed that the installation of the device reduces the center of pressure (CoP) movement during braking by 52%, the aerodynamic resistance of the entire racing car during acceleration by 19.5%, and the single lap time by 1.5%, while also inhibiting the generation of aerodynamic torque during roll.