About F1

Downforce and aerodynamics

Downforce is the force of air pushing an F1 car down onto the track. It works the same way as a plane's wing, only upside down: instead of lifting the car, the wings and floor press it into the road. More downforce means the tyres can grip harder, so the car can go through corners much faster than its weight alone would allow.

The price is drag, the air resistance that slows the car down. Almost everything that creates downforce also creates drag, so car design is a constant trade between speed in the corners and speed on the straights.

Where downforce comes from

An F1 car makes downforce in three main places.

The front wing is the first thing to meet the air. It makes downforce for the front tyres, and it also shapes how air flows around the front wheels and back along the car, which affects everything behind it.

The rear wing makes downforce for the rear tyres. It's the easiest part to adjust, so teams fit bigger or smaller rear wings depending on the track. Monaco gets a lot of wing; Monza gets very little.

The floor and diffuser are less visible but very powerful. Air speeds up as it's squeezed under the car, which lowers its pressure and sucks the car towards the track. The diffuser at the back, where the floor sweeps upwards, lets that fast air slow down and rejoin the airflow behind the car. Downforce from the floor is efficient, because it creates less drag than downforce from wings.

The 2026 changes

From 2022 to 2025, F1 cars used ground effect. Their floors had large tunnels (called Venturi tunnels) that made a lot of the car's downforce. The idea was that cars would be able to follow each other more closely. It helped at first, but the cars also needed to run very low and stiff, which led to porpoising: the car bouncing violently on the straights as the floor's suction stalled and recovered over and over.

The 2026 rules take a different approach:

  • The big underfloor tunnels have gone. The floor is flatter, with a larger diffuser at the back.
  • The front wing has fewer elements, and the small winglets above the front wheels have been removed.
  • Bargeboards are back, behind the front wheels. They steer messy air from the front tyres inward, rather than out to the side where it would disturb a following car.
  • The beam wing, a small wing low down at the back below the main rear wing, has been removed.
  • Both the front and rear wings now move between two positions. See active aerodynamics.

The FIA's target was about 30% less downforce and about 55% less drag than the previous cars. Lower drag matters because the cars rely so much on electric energy, which is limited on each lap.

Following another car

A car leaves a trail of disturbed, turbulent air behind it, usually called dirty air. When another car drives into it, its wings and floor work less well, it loses downforce, and its tyres slide and overheat. That's why overtaking is hard, even when the chasing car is quicker.

On the straights it's the other way round. The car behind is in the lead car's slipstream, where there's less air resistance, so it can go faster. Both effects are explained on slipstream and dirty air.

Ride height and the plank

The floor works best when it's very close to the ground, so teams run the cars as low as they dare. To stop them going too far, every car has a plank (also called the skid block) along the bottom of the floor. If it wears down more than the rules allow, the car is disqualified. See scrutineering.

Flexible wings

Teams are always looking for parts that bend at high speed, so that a wing gives downforce in the corners but flattens out to cut drag on the straights. The rules require bodywork to be rigid, and the FIA runs load tests to check how much wings and floors flex. In 2026 the wings are designed to move between fixed positions, but anything that bends beyond the allowed limits is still illegal.