The Engineering Fix: Moving Downforce to the Floor
The 2022 rules addressed the problem by fundamentally relocating where a car makes its downforce. Wings and bargeboards were reshaped and simplified, and in their place, the regulations brought back ground effect aerodynamics through venturi tunnels sculpted into the car's floor. As air is forced through the narrowing channel of a venturi tunnel, it speeds up, and under Bernoulli's principle, that increase in velocity produces a sharp drop in pressure beneath the car, effectively pulling the floor toward the track surface.
Because that downforce comes from the floor rather than from wings punching a hole in the air for the car behind to drive through, the effect on a following car is far less destructive. A 2022-specification car following another closely retains up to 86 percent of its normal downforce, a substantial improvement over the old 55 percent figure and the direct mechanical reason the rules were expected to produce closer racing, a change detailed in The Race's breakdown of the 2022 aerodynamic rules.
