Will a F1 race car stick on top of a tunnel at fast speed?

Answer 1

Yes, technically. No, practically. The downforce that a F1 car creates on high speed is good enough to ride upside down. But, the fuel, due to gravity will move to the top of the tank making it impossible for the engine to continue running.

Answer 2

Lana above is dead wrong. Of course there is no way to actually try or prove this, but at speed the wings of any of the top open wheel racing series cars (Formula 1, Cart, IRL) produce enough downforce that theoretically the car would stick to the top of a tunnel. I don't have the numbers on me right now, but the amount of downforce generated is crazy. A F1 car weighs around 1200 to 1300 lbs, so it wouldn't take much to get the car to stick upside down.

Answer 3

Yup, in theory if an F1 car is above a certain speed, the wings on the car will generate enough downforce for it to stick on the ceiling of a tunnel. However, the engine of an F1 car is not designed to work upside down. The lubricants, engine oil and fuel will be inverted probably causing the engine to die shortly after taking to any ceilings and the car will head back down to earth.

Answer 4

Can not say about the top of a tunnel, but can surely stick to the walls of the huge well etc as I have seen well of death where a guy drives a bike inside a well and his bike sticks to the wall of the well due to high speed of the bike. Now the F1 car certainly goes much faster than the bike in the well.

Another thing I would like to mention is that the Formula 1 car can leave ground if wings like an aircraft are provided to give it a lift. But once it leaves the ground we need some way to maintain the speed as it will start decelrating once it leaves the ground as wheels will not have anything to push against.

Answer 5

The aerodynamacists who work for Formula One teams claim the downforce generated at speed by modern F1 cars would be enough to enable them to drive on the roof of a tunnel. I have no reason not to believe them, but I don't expect to see an F1 car speeding upside down along the tunnel at the Monaco Grand Prix anytime soon.

Answer 6

Yes, At high speed and the design is made such that the body is made to rest on the ground at all times. As the car moves at that speed it creates a vacuum and air rushes down to fill the vacuum thus keeping the car to the ground. So assuming that the car was travelling upside down in a tunnel it would still stick to the wall due to the above principle.

Answer 7

If you think about how much downforce the cars produce, then it's quite possible for it to go on the ceiling at over 100mph.
I mean, in the turns the car and driver experience lateral forces of up to 5 G's, which would immediately roll a normal car over. A F1 car remains stable because it literally sticks to the road because of the huge amounts of downforce. The car weighs just 0.6 tons and probably produces a ton of downforce at 200 kph.

Answer 8

There is a lot of difference between what we say in theory and what we do in practice, practically the car produces such high downforce so that they say it theoretically the car can ride upside-down in a tunnel.

So it is so easy to do every drivers would have driven the car upside-down in the Monaco circuit if the racing line permits.

Answer 9

yes, absolutely. The aerodynamics are so efficient that at above about 100 mph there is sufficient downforce to run "upside down" against the top surface of a tunnel.

This has nothing to do with the wall of death stunt because that uses centrifugal force.

As a final point, a GP car produces about 800 bhp and about 250 hp of that is used to press the car down into the track at about 150 mph. Huge drag, huge grip, spectacular cornering.

Answer 10

I watched some show once and they said that the Ferrari F40 could do this if travelling over 170 mph. I just boils down to the pounds of downforce at a given speed exceeding the weight of the car.